


lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice

by starraya



Category: Holby City
Genre: 1980s - AU, Canon Divergence, Doctor Who - Crossover, F/F, Fairytale - AU, Grace and Frankie - AU, TW: Homophobia, tw: hate crime, tw: physical abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-11-08 11:59:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11081136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: A collection of AU one-shots.





	1. it's hard to find someone with that kind of intensity

Serena sips from the plastic cup in her hand. Grimaces. The punch is vile, but it’s alcohol. She knocks it back and it burns her throat. Tonight is the night. Tonight she tells her best friend she has feelings for her. No more lying to herself. No more hiding from the truth.

She is love. With Berenice Wolfe – of all people.

Berenice Wolfe, her best friend since she smiled a shy, lopsided smile and asked if she would like to be lab partners in Mrs Lockwood’s biology class. (They ended up being the only pair not to screw up the experiment set and win the prize of a milky bar.)

Berenice Wolfe, who was captain of both the netball and rounders team at St Winifred’s school for girls, but on that dreadful rainy morning in first period P.E. dropped the rounder’s ball despite the fact she could catch it in her sleep so Serena could complete the circuit.

Berenice Wolfe, who beat her at every sport except tennis at which Serena, in her own triumphant words, kicked her ass.

Berenice Wolfe, who when Serena dumped her first proper boyfriend, spotty Edward – because she saw him snogging Linda behind the bike sheds – flexed an arm and offered jokingly to beat him up for making Serena cry, before sharing her pudding with Serena and telling her that she was far too good for him _. I know_ , Serena wiped back a tear, her last one, _that’s why I chucked him_. _That’s my girl,_ Bernie smiled.

Berenice Wolfe, who let Serena make her up that one time, let her paint her lips scarlet and curl her lashes until they were thick with mascara. _It’s the only way we’ll get in_ , Serena convinced her, even more made up than Bernie and clad in a tiny silver dress and even more sparkly hoop earrings.

(Bernie swallowed thickly when she saw just how much skin the dress revealed, her eyes drawn to Serena’s necklace, which in turn drew her eyes lower to a cleavage Bernie had now given all hope would appear on her lanky frame. It was the last time she would look at Serena so unabashedly, without guilt or shame. It was a time when Bernie didn’t fully register why her eyes lingered on her best friend’s curves. Or why the smile of the pretty new barista in the local coffee shop made her heart flutter. Or why Bernie always jumped at the chance to help the maths teacher, Miss McGowan – with soft brunette hair, soft caramel eyes and an even softer Irish lilt – hand the textbooks out.)

Berenice Wolfe, whose arm Serena clutched so tight she nearly cut off the circulation as she wobbled in high-heeled boots (black, not silver this time) she hadn’t quite mastered. When they were safely sat in the back of the darkened cinema, Bernie helped her unzip them. (No one batted an eye at the two fifteen years old sneaking into an X-rated horror movie.)

Berenice Wolfe, who was too busy trying to stifle bouts of honking laughter to feel an ounce of fear as Serena continually shrieked and spent most of the film with her head buried in the crook of her arm (and in the more scarier parts, pressed against Bernie’s neck, eyes shut tight).

Berenice Wolfe, who turned up on Serena’s doorstep shaking and struggling to hold back tears as blood dripped down her forehead from a nasty gash. She was too stubborn to go to hospital – that damnable stiff British upper lip of hers – but she let Serena sit her down in a chair and clean up the cut. _Doctors truly do make the worst patients_ , Serena concurred as Bernie fidgeted and grumbled. _Steady on,_ Bernie reminded her, _I don’t even know if any university will have me yet._

 _Pftt._ Serena rolled her eyes. _They’d be stupid not to._

( _I told you so,_ Serena sing-songed a couple of months later when they both got accepted onto their medicine courses. _All that worrying for nothing, Doctor Wolfe.)_

Serena’s voice was low and serious as they stood in the garden. As Bernie lit a cigarette, Serena could see that the tremble hadn’t quite vanished from her hands. _So,_ Serena levelled, _who do I need to kill? I assume you didn’t fall in the shower._

Bernie shook her head. Mumbled that she didn’t catch their faces. Too busy trying to dodge half a brick – unsuccessfully. Some girls from the year below, probably.

 _Fucking cowards_ , Serena swiped Bernie’s cigarette. Took a drag. Passed it back. _Fucking juveniles._

_Did they say anything?_

Again, Bernie shook her head. They didn’t say a word, but they did scrawl a word on the brick in red paint. (Not that she told Serena that.)

_Did it happen outside school? Did Bernie want to report it?_

_What good would that do?_ Bernie shrugged.

 _It wasn’t fucking right. It isn’t fucking right._ Serena paced the patio. Threw up her arms. _Some people are gay. Get the fuck over it!_

Bernie nearly dropped her cigarette.

Serena’s hand flew to her mouth. _Oh God, Bernie I’m so sorry – I didn’t mean to –_

_Tell all your neighbours?_

_I – I –_

_How long have you known?_

_A while._ Serena looked down at the ground. _Since we were sixteen and I found that porn mag underneath your bed creased at the picture of a rather well-endowed woman._

 _Shit._ Bernie’s cheeks flushed red.

 _But I’d, well, guessed before that. I’m sorry I never told you but I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable by putting you on the spot. Make you talk about thing you weren’t ready to._ Serena groaned. _And now I’ve done just that._

 _Clearly, you’re not the only one who knows._ Bernie pointed to her head. _Anyone with an ear has heard the rumours._

_People spread rumours about any girl who has short hair and just happens to be good at sports._

_Oh, I don’t know what I’m complaining about then._

_Bernie, I didn’t mean that. I know they’re more than rumours. More than words. I know they’re intended to threaten and degrade and I can’t imagine how it feels to suffer them, or to keep such a secret but Bernie . . ._ Serena stepped forward and clasped Bernie’s hands. _I want you to know you never have to hide who you are from me._

 _I wanted to tell you so much._ Bernie feels tears threatening to spill once more. Blinks them back. _I did. I just . . . got scared. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship._

_Why would you?_

Bernie shrugged. _Or, at least, I didn’t want things to change between us._

_They won’t. You like women, Bernie. And you probably have all your life, longer than I’ve known you, but I’m your best friend. Simple as. ‘Fraid you’re not going to get rid of me that easily._

-

Serena remembers the conversation as she goes to fetch herself another cup of punch. Her last one, she promises herself. She needs to be able to think straight – even if she hasn’t been able to do that for a good while now. Especially around one Bernice Wolfe.

How many times has she encouraged Bernie to be herself around Serena? Told her that she never needs to worry or hide around her. And Serena’s the one who’s been doing exactly that – repressing a part of her. Thinking, _telling_ herself over and over that she can’t like women when she likes men. When she enjoys flirting with them. Dating them. Sleeping with them.

She could imagine herself living with a man when she’s older. Could imagine herself marrying a man and imagine herself being happy. Until she couldn’t. Until she realised, one night at a party, that she was in love with her best friend. They were playing spin the bottle with the six other girls in their dorm room when the bottle landed on Alice K. and she was dared by Sarah to kiss someone. When Alice chose Bernie, leant over and pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth, Serena’s gut twisted painfully.

She thought it was anger, at first. A feeling of protection for her high school best friend. The girls in their dorm were clever girls. Serena was Head Girl and Alice was her deputy. Serena found the girl a bit timid, but it was an endearing kind of shyness and what she lacked in words she more than made up in brains. Serena had always liked the girl.

However, in that moment she hated her. With every ounce of her being. How dare she put Bernie in a situation like that! She could have chosen anyone, but no, even though Alice very likely suspected what Serena knew of Bernie, she still kissed her. Without any thought for how Bernie might feel or that everyone was watching.

After what seemed like an eternity, Alice drew back from Bernie. _Smiling._ Serena curled her fist in her lap, feeling her gut twist tighter. Serena studied Bernie’s face throughout the entire thing. Bernie would act cool, she knew. Smile nervously, but nobly play along. Serena searched for the tiny, tell-tale signs she knew to spot on Bernie’s face. The tightness of her lips at the corners or the line of tension in her neck that meant that something wasn’t right. That she was uncomfortable or embarrassed or upset in any way.

What she didn’t expect was to see a smile quirking Bernie’s lips, small but unmistakable and one directed at Alice. Serena felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She didn’t feel angry or protective. She felt jealous.

Jealous of her best friend smiling like that at another girl instead of Serena. For the rest of the night, Serena tied herself in knots with thoughts of Bernie and Alice. Wondering if anything was going on between them. Wondering that if there wasn’t if Bernie wanted there to be?

Serena found out that the latter was right and the former soon fulfilled.

Bernie dated Alice for four months. Four months of agony for Serena. She’d made sure that Bernie knew she could tell her anything – and of course, Serena was the only one Bernie could tell about Alice. Serena listened as Bernie fretted over what to wear for a date with Alice. Helped her calm her nerves before playing a netball match – not because it was the final tournament, but because Alice would be watching. Serena was there for Bernie – with a shoulder to cry on and a milky bar – when her and Alice had their tiff because Bernie ‘never emotionally opened up’. Even though every atom of Serena’s body was screaming break up with her, if someone couldn’t respect your boundaries, then . . . Serena had a whole speech carefully worked out, but she said none of it.

She knew Bernie still liked Alice. And apparently, the ball was in Alice’s court, not Bernie’s when it came to dumping the other. It was Bernie who needed to apologise and she did. She made up with Alice the next day. Serena deserved an Academy Award for her show of happiness at the news. How she managed to refrain from punching the air in joy when Bernie told her that her and Alice had broken up halfway through the Autumn semester remained a mystery.  

It was the distance, Bernie explained. What with Bernie at university in the south of England and Alice all the way up in Edinburgh. It was hard to keep in contact. Their relationship was still in the early days and it couldn’t bear the strain. Serena saw her best friend through her first heartbreak and vowed that something like that would never come between their friendship. Serena wouldn’t let them fall out of contact or drift apart. Their universities were just over an hour apart – a pain in the ass when the trains played up – but Serena was determined that their friendship wouldn’t fall apart.

Despite her vow, it is Serena who has been distant recently and inch by inch she has been unconsciously pushing Bernie away. A month ago, Robbie, a boy in her halls, had asked her out on a date. He seemed nice, clean and well-groomed at least – compared to the standard set by other students – and Serena liked him. She hadn’t had a boyfriend, hadn’t dated in over a year. For most of it she’d pined after her best friend. And it had gone nowhere.

Serena wasn’t brave enough try and make it go _somewhere_.

She knew just because Bernie was gay didn’t mean she fancied every woman on earth – contrary to what some straight girls might think – and she’d never shown any inclination of that kind towards Serena. Maybe Serena was fooling herself in hoping that something might happen. Maybe there were better friends. She still hadn’t got her hand around the whole ‘Serena Campbell – straight or lesbian or bisexual?’ thing yet. She wouldn’t let herself use Bernie to certify that. She had to process those thoughts by herself.

And Robbie asking her out threw all those thoughts into disarray. Could she go out with him knowing she was in love with Bernie? Was she in love with Bernie? Properly? Wholly? To the extent that she would turn down one tiny but potentially fun date? She wasn’t Bernie’s girlfriend. Wasn’t tied to her in anyway and yet Serena felt a strange sense of loyalty. Felt she might betray it if she accepted Robbie’s offer. Felt she might betray _herself_ if she accepted Robbie's offer.

But why? She was attracted to him. She was attracted to men. And God, wasn’t she overthinking this? For all she knew, Bernie could have just been asked out by a girl and accepted. It was stupid to think like that Serena knew. It was stupid to pine after something that might never happen too. So, Serena went on the date with Robbie. Ate good wine food. Drank good wine. Had a good time. And at the end of the night when he kissed her, that was good too. Just good.

It didn’t light any spark inside her.

And she didn’t arrange another date with him. Only gave him a ‘maybe’ when he asked if they could do this again. He gave her his number but she didn’t call him.

And the reason wasn’t because she didn’t like men. She did, but she also liked women and one in particular. And it was time she did something about it. She would set a date, and on that date, she would tell Bernie. Bernie had invited her to stop the weekend at her University halls. Her friend was throwing a house party three weeks Saturday and she wondered if Serena would like to go with her.

Serena agreed. Spent the next days in a nervous tizzy. Either barely able to pronounce two words when Bernie called at their usual weekly time or full of nonsense that rambled off her tongue before she could stop it. When Bernie greeted her off the train this morning, her words were neither short or full in supply. The nerves had made her jittery, and her tone brusque. She had even snapped at Bernie a few times. Silly, little bursts of annoyance that she quickly apologised for, but did nothing to ease the tension between them. Bernie had asked if anything was wrong. Anything serious. Serena had brushed her off and seen Bernie try to hide the fallen look on her face. _Great, now she thinks that I don’t trust her. Now she thinks I’m lying to her. Well, aren’t you?_ A tiny, unwelcome voice in Serena’s head piped up. 

It was time she told the truth. And tonight was the night.

Serena pours herself another drink. Searches for Bernie in the crowd. Sees her stood next to a lad, clearly hammered and waving a bottle of vodka in Bernie’s direction. Yelling loudly.

Serena storms over. “What did you just say?”

“I said,” the lad slurred, “that she’s only a dyke ‘cause no one with a cock will –“

“Sorry,” Serena cuts in, feeling the eyes of every person in the room now on her, “you seem to be under the impression that I wanted you to answer.”

“It’s my right of free speech, babe, don’t like it, don’t –“

“How can I put this in terms your narrow-minded, infantile brain will comprehend? Ah, yes. Fuck off.”

Serena chucks her drink over Daniel. “It tastes like cheap shit anyway.” Serena crumples up her plastic cup. Tosses it on the floor, before hooking an arm round an open-mouthed Bernie and leading them out the house.

Serena marches on, practically dragging Bernie down the steps. Only when they reach the pavement does a stunned Bernie break out her stupor.

“Serena. Wait.”

“What? You wanna go back inside?”

“No, of course not. I – what you just did . . . no one’s ever done something like that for me before.”

“Now they have.”

“But . . . why?”

“Why?” Serena asks. “Because, one he was a jerk. Because, two, you Berenice Griselda Wolfe are the most fantastic and fearless woman I know. Because . . . “

Serena finishes her sentence by pressing her lips to Bernie’s, brief but firm. When she draws back, she sees that Bernie’s face has clouded over. Her eyes are fixed on the ground.

“Have I done something wrong?”

“No, yes. I mean, what you did in there meant a lot to me. It took guts. But . . .” Bernie swallows. “I suppose, well . . . it isn’t fair Serena. I know you’re . . . open-minded, so much more than those cave-men inside and I love that about you, but I don’t want to be, I dunno, some way in which you can show that off. A way for you to protest.”

“ _What?”_ Serena is too confused to register the hurt Bernie’s assumption will later strike in her. Instead, she follows Bernie’s line of sight and turns to the house behind her. A dozen or so faces are pressed up against the window, peering at her. Serena glowers at them - her most perfect _fuck off_ expression – and is glad to see some of the faces sink away.

“I had no idea.” Serena turns back to Bernie. “You think I’m using you? Showing off?"

“That wasn’t the best wording, but . . . yes.”

Serena can hardly believe what she is hearing. Her cheeks flush pink. How can Bernie think she would do that? She stalks down the street. No longer able to look at Bernie.

“Serena,” Bernie calls, running after her. “Serena.”

Halfway down the street Serena’s fuse snaps. She whips back around to Bernie. “You think our friendship was what, just a political statement on my behalf? Oh, look at my lesbian friend.” Serena punches a fist into the air. “Justice for gays.”

“Serena, I didn’t mean to –“

“Offend me? Really?” Serena forces herself to take a breath. Since they’re on the topic of the LGBT community. Now or never, she thinks. Now or never. “Okay, listen up Bernie. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to assume you’re in shock. That you really have never noticed the way I look at you. I didn’t kiss you for them. I kissed you for _me_.”

Serena steps forward and captures Bernie’s lips once more – fiercer this time. Trying to convey her very vested interest in this activity. Bernie melts into the embrace, arms circling round Serena’s waist, hands snaking up to tangle through her hair.

When they break apart, Bernie’s voice is breathless, small and a tad sheepish. “You’re . . . you’re . . . “

“A bit more than open-minded?” Serena supplies. “Yes, I am. And no, I’m not just curious. I don’t see you as some experiment if that’s what you’re wondering. I have thought a great deal about this you know.”

“Really?”

Serena nods.

“Me too,” Bernie admits.

“No, you haven’t.”

“Yes, I have.”

This time it is Serena’s turn to stand open-mouthed.

“I have. I do notice the way you look at me. I just thought . . . you were my best friend and a dyed in the wool heterosexual. I didn’t dare hope – “ Serena’s eyebrows nearly jump to her hairline as Bernie continues, stuttering. “And I didn’t want to . . . “

“Let me guess,” Serena chimes in. “Ruin our friendship.”

Bernie nods.

Serena smiles. “Want to get out of here?”

“Before Daniel comes out the house and throws a brick at us?”

Serena lifts a hand to Bernie’s forehead. Runs a finger over the scar there.

“Sorry,” Bernie says. “Bad sense of humour.”

“Come on,” Serena drops her hand and walks on. Bernie falls into step beside her.

“Daniel,” Serena asks, “was that his name? The lad?”

“Yeah.”

“Prick.”

“You know, what you did . . .” Bernie stumbles over her words. “It was really hot.”

Serena can’t help but grin at that. “I wished now I had used a fist instead of a paper cup.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Bernie grasps one of Serena’s hands, the skin of the knuckles intact. “You have beautiful hands.”

Serena bursts out in laughter.

“What?” Bernie asks.

“You’re such a lesbian.”

“Hang on. You just snogged me twice. I think that places you higher on the Sapphic scale right now.”

“There’s a scale?”

“Oh, my God, next time you’re over here I’m taking you to the gay district.”

“Your city’s rubbish. Let’s go to mine instead.”

“You’ve been?”

“I may have . . . had a look. Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Bernie acts mock-annoyed.

“I was confused,” Serena protests. “And now I’m not. Anyway, what do you say?”

“You and me in a room full of hot women. I’m game.”

Serena elbows her in the stomach. “Oi.”

“You were included in the hot women.”

“But, seriously, want to come over to mine next weekend?”

“I’d like that,” Bernie smiles. “I’d more than like that.”

I more than like you, Bernie wants to say but she doesn’t. She doesn’t need to for Serena to know. Because she hasn’t let go of Serena’s hand since she picked it up. She has interlocked their fingers. And that's how they stay, as they walk back to Bernie’s room, holding hands under the cover of darkness. They see not another soul on their way back. Don’t break apart once.

Not when they reach Bernie’s room. Not when they tumble into bed together.

Not when they fall asleep after, wrapped in each other’s arms – the taste of cheap punch on Serena’s tongue replaced entirely by the taste of Bernie.


	2. and when you come looking for embrace, I know your soul, I'll be your home

Bernie stalls outside the restaurant. Serena’s immediately by her side, taking Bernie’s hands in her own. Drawing smoothing circles with the tip of her thumbs on Bernie’s skin. The movement isn’t helping, or at least achieving its desired effect. To calm Bernie’s racing heart. Clear her mind. It draws her attention to Serena’s – extremely talented – hands, her thumbs and gives Bernie an idea.

Serena watches her eyes darken. “No,” she instructs, before Bernie’s lips close on her own. “No.” She pulls back. “Berenice Wolfe, you already tried that trick.”

Bernie’s hands snake around Serena’s waist and pull her closer. Serena can feel Bernie’s breathe hot on the skin of her neck. “Worked earlier, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” Serena draws back slightly and inspects her watch. “And made us extremely late.”

“You weren’t complaining,” Bernie lowers her voice. “In fact, I distinctly remember quite a lot of begging.”

Serena can feel a flush creeping up her neck – one she no longer blame on hormones, teenage or peri-menopausal – at 64 years old.

“Well, now I’m telling you," she steps back from Bernie’s embrace. “We need to finally inside. We need to get this over and done with.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It won’t be, but it’s like with stabbings. Have to pull out the knife, before you can treat the wound.”

“Great, so we’re stabbing our husbands.”

“You know what I mean. We decided to do this Bernie because we’ve already hurt so many people, and it’s not going to be easy, but we can either face up to that or continue hurting them. We can continue lying to them, lying to ourselves. Or we can actually –”

“Be brave for once,” Bernie suggests.

“Yes.”

“It’s time, Bernie.”

“I know.” Bernie looks to the entrance of the restaurant where inside their husbands are waiting for them, oblivious.

“Come on then, Soldier.” Serena steps forward. Resists the instinctive urge to grasp Bernie’s hand and interlock their figures. One she must often fight back when they’re in public. One she won’t need to, in minutes time, anymore. “Deep breathes.” She walks up the path to the restaurant door and says it as much for herself as Bernie.

She can do this, Serena tells herself. _They_ can do this.

But she doesn’t trust her own words. _We need to get this over and done with._

There is no getting this over and done with. Once they tell Marcus and Edward, sit through the shock and questions and – no doubt – yelling, they will have to tell their kids. God knows how they will react. She reckons Jason will take it the best of all, despite his dislike for any disruption of order and routine. But they will explain it to him, carefully. One of the many things Serena loves Bernie for is her understanding of Jason. Her effort. Not patronising and overeager, or insensitive and short-tempered. Over the many years Bernie and Serena have known each other, Jason and Bernie have become good friends. Serena knows Jason likes her and it never fails to warm her heart, make it feel as if it is expanding until it’s too big for her chest, the knowledge that Jason likes the woman Serena loves.

It might not even come as a shock to him. Jason is an incredibly astute man. He may not have worked it out entirely, but he’s probably picked up several clues over the years and will quickly fix them together like a jigsaw when Serena gives him the final piece. Tells him the truth about her and Bernie.

It is Elinor Serena most worries about. What she will say. What she will do. Serena has spent night after night imagining her daughter’s reaction, from shocked to disgusted to furious. Serena has mentally stacked up quite an impressive list of homophobic barbs, biphobic and lesbophobic in turn, not to mention a string of insults about her failings as a mother, wife and general human being.

She’s feels as if she’s lived through Elinor’s reaction a hundred times already, and none of them were good.

Then there’s Cameron and Charlotte. How they’ll take it. How they’ll think of Bernie. How they’ll treat her. How they’ll treat them both. Their mother and new mother-in-law. Bernie and Serena’s 30-year friendship has meant that their families have intertwined, they’ve shared Christmases and birthdays and summer barbeques and in the early days Bernie and Serena used to even double date with their husbands, talk about their common interest: blood, guts and gore, or as it’s known in polite circles, life on the frontline of the NHS.

Cameron and Charlotte and Elinor and Jason are all friends, independent of their parent’s friendship. Charlotte and Elinor used to go out shopping together. Now they’re grown adults these girly trips have turned to taking Ada, Serena’s grandchild, to the park and treating her to an ice-cream after pushing her backwards and forth on the swings. Jason and Cameron used to play video games or chess and have lad’s nights and they still do, except sometimes now it’s with Ada and trying to teach the five-year old how to play Mario cart. Sometimes Elinor crashes these lad’s nights in and thrashes them both at the game, helping her daughter to first place and pausing every now and then to high five her. Serena remembers when the kids were all in their twenties, when they used to stake a claim on Serena’s living room and hog the sofas, when the order of the night was blankets and popcorn and movies.

Often, on those nights, Serena would invite Bernie over. They’d nab their own supplies. Their blanket – tartan, old but still soft – that Serena hid in her room away from the hands of the children for this very occasion and a bottle or two of Shiraz, maybe whiskey for Bernie. They’d get the deckchairs Serena and Edward brought just after they were married but were never packed whenever they holidayed at the seaside, because of the effort of hauling them into the car and the extra weight, dead weight probably considering the abyssal weather that often haunted them whenever they holidayed in the UK. Rain, rain and more rain.

Serena preferred sitting outside with Bernie, side by side, wrapped in the tartan blanket, than any holiday. They’d sip wine and chat and do not much else, but revel in each other’s company. Sometimes Bernie would indulge in a cigarette and – and as rare as it was – Serena would steal her cigarette, take a drag and pass it back, grinning. Sometimes, under the cover of night and the tartan blanket, their hands would find each other’s and clasp tight.

Sometimes, in the recent years, Ada would get bored of Mario Kart and sneak off to the garden to clamber into her grandmother’s lap and settle her head against Serena’s chest. Play with Serena’s hands, touch the rings, smooth and shiny, on her fingers or trace the blue of the veins from wrist to knuckles, growing more visible day by day. What Serena preferred not to think about, her granddaughter found endless fascination in, mapping out each crease of skin.

What Ada liked best though was asking about Serena’s necklace – she’d learnt not to tug on it, or touch it without permission – but her captivation hadn’t faded.  
Serena would unclip it and give it Ada to run her fingers over. Ada knew it was special to her grandmother, like her favourite stuffed animal, Bunny, was to Ada. She knew that she wouldn’t like anyone to hurt Bunny or mess with him and she knew to be careful with her grandmother’s necklace. Each time she played with it, Serena knew what Ada was truly after. Ever since she had told Ada the story of the necklace – how Serena’s father had given it her for her 16th birthday – Ada always wanted her to repeat it.

Often Ada was more interested in how the story connected to Serena’s mother – someone Serena frequently told her about. Ada liked the stories about her great-grandfather, but Serena knew she liked the tales of Adrienne best and Serena never begrudged her them. Serena’s mother was the woman Ada shared her name with, and, consequently, adored.

Sat in the deckchair opposite, Bernie loved to watch Serena talk to her granddaughter about her parents. Watch how Serena’s words made Ada’s face light up, and, unbeknownst to Serena, hers too. Ada would steal Bernie’s half of the blanket and bunch it around her small frame until she looked like a tartan snowman with just her chubby, pink face and mop of brown hair poking out the fabric. The first time she’d done it, Bernie had erupted into laughs. Great, honking noises that made Ada dissolve into giggles at her Auntie Bernie.

Sometimes, she’d give back Serena her necklace and climb across into Bernie’s lap. Beg her to play with her hair, brush it through or tie it into clumsy pigtails – as she had done one Summer barbeque, much to the amusement of Charlotte and Cameron and practically everyone, but Bernie refused to take them out and hurt Ada’s feelings, even despite Serena’s merciless teasing and when Bernie got tired of one of the kids jibes, she would simply brandish a metal skewer and remind them how she was the cook of this barbeque, and not only was she an ex-army Major armed with a very sharp and pointy thing, she was in charge of who ate and who didn’t.

Ada would also plead for Bernie to play catch with her or, after her third birthday, with her plastic toy set of skittles and bowling balls. That had been an extremely fun afternoon, hot and sunny. If anyone asked how Bernie and Serena managed to get so competitive over a kid’s set of bowling they chalked it up to the heat. The pair went from best of three to best of ten, until eventually – each of them to this day blame the other – there was a great clang as one of the balls hit the window and jolted Edward awake from his afternoon nap. Thank god it was plastic or they may have had to hire a tradesman.

Ada, would fall asleep, sprawled across Bernie and Serena’s laps until the night drew late, the glass in Serena’s hand grew empty and the air filled with a chill that the blanket couldn’t warm off. Serena would carry Ada to her bedroom, the one she stayed in at Serena’s, and tuck her in while Bernie would pack away the deckchairs and lock up the back door to the garden. Bernie would join Serena outside Ada’s room as Serena stood in the doorway, watching her granddaughter sleep. Bernie, if there was no one else in the house, would wrap her arms around Serena’s waist and pull her back against Bernie’s front.

The first time Bernie had done this, Serena jumped. Hissed. “Can you wear louder shoes please?”

It was half two in the morning and they’d finally succeeded in hushing a five-month old Ada’s screams and rocking her to sleep.

“And risk waking the monster?” Bernie whispered.

Serena turned around in Bernie’s arms, her eyes tired and dark. She stifled a yawn.

“I hereby raise a motion for us to go bare feet for the rest of our lives.”

“Seconded.” Bernie found herself mirroring the yawn.

“But no creeping up on me.” Serena warned.

“What about creeping over you?” Bernie’s hands tightened around Serena’s waist as she dropped a kiss to her lips. “Yeah, that sounded sexier in my head.”

  
Serena bit back laughter. Now, was not the time to go triggering Bernie’s transformation into a goose on drugs. She needed sleep, and she needed it now. And unfortunately, not the kind Bernie was suggesting.

“Second motion,” she pressed her lips to Bernie’s cheek. “A very long, please God, peaceful sleep.”

With that she walked over to her bedroom and pushed open the door, pausing to look at Bernie glancing one last time at Ada before softly closing the door shut. Serena felt her heart drop to her stomach. She knew the pang of regret well. The _what ifs_ , but she tried to push them out her mind. Some nights, she wasn’t successful.

She wondered what if would have been like if they hadn’t hidden from their feelings for as long as they did. They could have had a child together. One of them, in their late thirties, perhaps, that wasn’t too old. The chances were small, but they were still there. They could have raised a family together. Serena has often thought about what would have happened if she’d met Bernie earlier, when they were in their teens or early twenties. But those fantasies quickly cut short. She wouldn’t have Elinor. Bernie Cameron or Charlotte. Even her idea of having have a child with Bernie, that would sit in their laps and who they would tuck into bed, Serena’s knew was just another dream. It had a shred of probability, realism – something that could have happened if one worked their imagination hard enough – but it hadn't happened. And there's no point regretting things that didn’t happen. Serena carries her fair share of guilt over things that _have_ happened in her life. Mostly regret about them happening too late. 

Like this, for instance. Telling their husbands the truth. Or admitting the truth to themselves, years ago, when she and Bernie kissed for the first time, exhausted from trying to save their friend and colleague’s life, exhausted from everything. Exhausted from pretending and lying and hiding and resisting the pull of each other. Exhausted from always having to be so God damn strong, when the other was the only person they could truly show weakness to, crumble in front of, share their vulnerability with. And, on the theatre floor, lips met lips without resistance, hands clutched fabric desperately, aching and calloused fingers found homes in soft hair and mouths swallowed each other moans.

Their bodies entwined, legs pressed to legs, arms curved around waists.

A moment of weakness, of giving in or finally bravery, finally the strength to peel back every lie and pretence and mask and bare their true selves. Their true desires.

Serena has had years to think over that moment. Over her and Bernie’s relationship. To think how it is so much more than an affair, so much more than some dirty secret. How she wants it to be more than that. She wants to shout her love for Bernie from the rooftops. She wants to hold Bernie's hand in the street. She knows she will always love Bernie, but she wants to love her wholly, completely for whatever time they have left on this earth. They are both on the wrong side of sixty and aren’t getting any younger.

It is time, Serena tells herself as she walks into the restaurant. She wants all of Bernie, not just parts of her, not just telephone calls, whispered and in the dead of night or secret stays in hotel rooms, not stolen kisses or shared glances across a crowded room.

“Serena.”

Bernie’s arm on her shoulder pulls Serena out her thoughts.

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” she says, rubbing Serena’s arm when she turns around to face Bernie.

“Is it any wonder?” But Serena is surprised at how breathless she sounds, at the state she’s worked herself into.

“I thought you were okay with this.”

“I am. I just –” Serena takes several deep breathes. She looks down at her trembling fingers. “There’s no going back after this, is there?”

“I think we should go back outside. Get some fresh air. I’ll get you some water. Tell Marcus and Edward you’re sick.”

“No, no,” Serena waves a hand. Waves Bernie’s hands off her. “No more stalling. No more excuses.”

“Serena, you’re having a panic attack.”

“And Edward and Marcus aren’t going to?”

“Yes, they’re very likely going to freak out. And we need to be ready to deal with that, and right now – Serena, let me take you home.”

“Serena? Bernie?” They both snap around to see Marcus at the end of the corridor. “We almost thought you weren’t coming. Edward’s nearly on his third glass already.”

“Let me guess, it isn’t water,” Bernie mutters under her breath, tries to make Serena smile as she follows her down the corridor.

“Finally,” Edward sighs as Bernie and Serena sit down at their table for four, not raising his eyes from the menu he’s flicking through. “So, when are you retiring?”

That’s what he thinks this mysterious announcement is, Bernie realises, no big deal. Marcus must think it too. This morning they haven’t fretted over any shocking revelation, just waited impatiently and expectantly for the news of their retirement. Joint of course, because of their status as co-leads on AAUs. 

Bernie finds Serena’s hand under the table. Her face is pale as chalk. Bernie feels the tremors still in Serena's hand and clutches it. They’d always agreed that Serena would talk, owing to Bernie’s disastrous relationship with words, but Bernie changes the plan. Holds the hand of the woman she loves, finds strength in that and swallows thickly.

Steels herself.

“We have, together, decided to retire,” she stutters. “And we’ve also decided . . . we want to . . . we . . .”

“We’re getting married.” Serena finishes. "We love each other."

Edward drops his glass of wine. It runs over the tablecloth, red bleeding into white. Bernie jumps up, avoiding the splash of the liquid. She pulls Serena up with her, their hands still joined, united. For the whole world to see.

Edward shouts. Marcus yells. Both bombard them with questions.

But neither Bernie or Serena loosen their grip on each other. This is only just the start, they both know, of a very long journey, but they’re in it together.

Wholly, completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so one day I wanna write an AU where Bernie and Serena are Grace and Frankie, but I thought them being Robert and Sol would be a pretty interesting angle too.
> 
> There will be a second part to this fic, and whilst this was mainly fluff, I've always wanted to write the idea of Bernie being there for Serena during Adrienne's abuse and I might write it in this universe.


	3. in the moment we're lost and found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is set in the same universe as the chapter before. Bernie joined Holby - and AAU - five years earlier than in the show.

Bernie sighs as she rummages for a file hidden somewhere amongst the papers on Serena’s usually tidy desk, not at the mess but at the boxed sandwich she finds. Unopened from when Bernie left it on Serena’s desk earlier. She suspected Serena hadn’t eaten this morning and wouldn’t for lunch. Bernie knows she’s skipping meals. Putting off eating. Justifying it, likely, with the age-old excuse that she simply hasn’t the time. Not when she’s holed up in theatre or buried under paper work or trapped within the tyranny of the boardroom.

Their lives, their jobs are as high-pressurised as they come, Bernie knows. But she also knows that Serena knows the importance of staying on top of your game. Of getting some energy in you. Even if it is just a sandwich – and an extra strong cup of coffee – wolfed down in a two minutes grace between stabilising a patient in surgery and the ring of the red phone. They need to stay alert. Take whatever breaks they can find, however small, to reenergise, breathe. Eat.

Bernie hasn’t mentioned her concerns to Serena, not directly, but she’s been leaving sandwiches on her desk for few days now. First, it started with cups of coffee paired with the offer of a five-minute chat outside on what Bernie mentally terms _their_ bench. Serena thanked her for the coffee and for the offer, but said she had a meeting with Hanssen she was already running late for. Coffee became accompanied by pastry from Pulses. After she’d got into work, Bernie would sneak them on Serena’s desk and pop her head back in their office mid-afternoon to see if they’d disappeared.

Bernie leaves sandwiches now. She can’t recall a time in the past two weeks she saw Serena eat. She buys her favourites, tuna and sweetcorn on brown bread or chicken salad. Within the pre-packaged sandwiches, she spots tomatoes peeking out the slices of breads. She knows Serena hates them, but not to the extent that stops her from simply plucking them off and tossing them in the bin. Until Bernie joked that Serena was wasting perfectly good tomatoes and Serena began to offer them to Bernie whenever they had lunch together.

As Bernie searches for the file, she picks up the sandwich to move it aside. Tuna mayonnaise. Out of date. Two days. She leans under Serena’s desk to chuck it in the bin below and finds empty sandwich boxes. She is eating then. Maybe not all the time. Probably sporadically. Bernie’s noticed a change in Serena’s appearance, a thinness to her cheeks, a slimness to her figure. Sandwiches alone aren’t going to solve the problem.

It isn’t just Serena’s job as co-lead on AAU and deputy CEO that’s taking her toll on her, it’s Serena’s mother. Her dementia’s worsened. Her visits to hospital are more frequent. Bernie knows Adrienne isn’t an easy patient. She gets confused, of course. The elderly and mentally ill are especially vulnerable and challenging patients. Adrienne gets frustrated, waking up in hospital to unfamiliar surroundings, disorientated and calling for her long-dead husband. Calling for Serena to take her home. Shouting when Serena apologises, says she can’t, just now. Can't take her home or stay with her. Can't, right now, cut Adrienne's for her or find that photo album Adrienne swears has the photo of that boy whose name she can't recall. 

_Not now. I can't. Later._

All that falls from Serena’s lips these days. That she says not just to her mother, but also to Bernie. That she can't go out later for dinner or even a quick jaunt to Albies. That she can't spare five minutes for a cup of coffee and chat in Pulses. _Not now. Maybe later._ But later never arrives, Bernie knows. There is always another meeting, another stack of paperwork, another patient to sign off, another call of the red phone or one from her mother's carer. 

Tonight, however, she’s promised herself that she won’t leave Serena, not until they’ve talked. Properly, for more than five minutes. Bernie knows her friend’s stretching herself thin, heading for burn out. That someone needs to stop her.

As she nears their office, she hears Serena yelling. Bernie pushes open the door to see Serena, head in one hand, phone in the other. “Don’t take that tone with me. Edward? _Edward_?”

Serena grips her phone. Looks up at Bernie. “He’s hung up. Bloody adolescent.”

“Edward?”

“He wants me home like some 1950s house-wife, cooking him dinner, not earning my own living. I’ve told him, if he wants the house clean, the hover’s waiting in the end room.”

“How are things . . . between you two?”

Serena’s relationship with Edward has always been tempestuous at best. Bernie was there when Serena found out about his affair, there when she left him, there when he wormed his way back into Serena’s life, around the time of Adrienne’s diagnosis, when Bernie knows Serena didn’t have the energy to tell him where to stick his excuses and apologies and pleas for forgiveness. She knows Elinor wanted Serena to take him back, even though while this was the first affair Serena had uncovered, it likely wasn’t the first he’d had.

Bernie knows Edward and Serena don’t see each other much. That Serena’s focus right now isn’t on her cheating bastard of a husband – not that Serena’s called him that, but Bernie has, in her head, several times – it’s on her mother. It’s seems however, from Edward’s call, that he isn’t getting that message.

“Oh, everything’s peachy,” Serena deadpans. “He wants us all playing happy families.” She hasn’t loosened her clutch on her mobile. Bernie can see tremors in her hand.

“How are you?”

Bernie moves around the office to perch on the side of Serena’s desk. Something she’s apt to favour over her own chair. “How are you doing?”

The intensity of Bernie’s look, eyes wide and caring, the directness of her words, makes Serena push her chair back, away from Bernie. She places the phone on the desk and pulls her hands in her lap. Averts her eyes to her fingers. Away from Bernie.

“You look . . . tired,” Bernie says.

“Part of the job description, you know that.” Serena shrugs.

“Yes, but, I also know that you’re not yourself. Haven’t been for a while.”

A nervous chuckle slips Serena’s lips. Her eyes flicker up to Bernie’s. “I . . .”

“Come out with me tonight,” Bernie offers. “Dinner. Italian. Copious amounts of Shiraz.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not? Come on, my treat. We haven’t – “

“I’m not a charity case, Bernie. Stop treating me like one.”

“I wasn’t . . . I . . .”

Serena pulls the waste bin out from under her desk. Sets it on top.

“I don’t need you mothering me.”

“Serena, you look like you haven’t eaten or slept in days,” Bernie levels. “How long do you think you can keep this up?”

There it is. She’s said it. Aimed right for the jugular.

Serena moves her chair further back. Her eyes blaze. Never leave Bernie’s, but she stays silent.

“I know that you didn’t go home last night.”

“My mother needed – “

“Serena, you _need_ to take a break.”

“And you need to remember who you’re talking to!”

Bernie scoffs. “My colleague? Co-lead? My _friend_?”

Serena springs up from her chair. Has every attention of pushing past Bernie. Avoiding this Spanish inquisition. Instead, she finds herself blinking at the ceiling of her office and lying on the floor flat on her back, Bernie kneeling beside her.

“You fainted.” Bernie tells her - levelling her tone so Serena can't spot the panic still coursing through her body. Of course, she's had patients faint before in front of her, but having your best friend collapse in your arms, lowering them to the floor and checking their breathing, exhaling in relief when, after half a minute, they open their eyes, it’s not quite the same.  

“Has it happened before?”

Serena shakes her head. “Just today”.

She let’s Bernie help her into a sitting position, back against the wall. Pours her a cup of water from the machine in their office and passes it her.

"Thanks," Serena sips the water. Bernie slides down the wall so she is sat beside her. Silence settles between them. Serena knows Bernie is waiting for her, in the wake of proof, to admit that something's wrong.

"Maybe . . . you're right."

"A rare but no doubt annoying occurrence," Bernie concedes.

“Very," Serena agrees, her smile mirroring Bernie's. But not quite reaching her eyes.

“Let me drive you home.” Bernie gestures to the pile of papers on Serena’s desk. “Get some rest. Forget about all this. At least for tonight.”

Serena shakes her head. “Hanssen’s asked me to completely rewrite my presentation for the board tomorrow.”

“Ask him to get someone else to do it.”

“You make it sound so easy. I’m deputy CEO. I can’t be pushing off my duties on others whenever things turn a tiny bit tough.”

“Serena, your mother has dementia. You’re her next of kin. Her caregiver. No one would judge you if you did.”

Serena lets out a humph. “Guy self, would. He’d love my knock me down the pecking order. Take my place.”

“Stuff Guy Self,” Bernie says. “Stuff what others think. This is about what’s important to you.”

“I love medicine and I love my family,” Serena’s forehead creases as she ponders Bernie’s words, what’s important to her. “And they both deserve my precious time far more than the board of this hospital.”

“That’s the spirit,” Bernie smiles.

Serena smiles back. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” Bernie rises to her feet, turns. Offers Serena her hand. Serena’s fingers enclose around Bernie’s, let’s Bernie pull her up. Doesn’t see Bernie’s face fall until it’s too late. Bernie doesn’t release her head. Instead she holds tight, her other pushes back the sleeve of Serena’s shirt. Serena yanks her arm free. Pulls her sleeve down. Knows it no use. Bernie saw the bruise – it’s hard to miss – purpling vividly just below the inside of her elbow.

“Edward?” Bernie murmurs, brow creasing. Serena can practically hear the cogs in Bernie’s head whirling, closer and closer to the truth.

“I fell.”

Bernie’s tilts her head in disbelief. “Let me guess. In the shower?”

"No, I - I - fainted. I was outside, gardening. Kneeling down. Got up too quickly."

"You told me this was a one-off."

"It is. At work. Before I've never - "

"Serena, you can't - you have to tell Hanssen. Ask for some time off. You're exhausted and stressed.”

"I'm fine.”

Bernie sighs. _Back to square one._

"I mean . . . " Serena searches for words. "I haven't been at my best lately, but -"

"And that's the problem," Bernie interjects. "You have to be at your best. In theatre. For the patients."

"And you're saying I haven’t been?"

"I'm saying that perhaps . . ." If she went for the jugular earlier, Bernie is now going straight for the heart. Brutal, but necessary. "You could be putting patients at risk." _And yourself_ , she mentally adds. Fainting’s less dangerous if you know to watch for the symptoms, try and lie down before you pass out – Bernie envisions the stone steps leading from Serena’s house to her garden patio – but if you ignore them, pretend everything’s alright, don’t do anything to combat the causes . . .

“How can you say that?”

"Serena, I'm sorry but if you don't go to Hanssen, I will."

"Pray tell." Serena drawls, her eyes daggers. "Does this ultimatum have a time limit?"

"Tomorrow, midday."

Serena shakes her head, incredulous. Opens her hands, fingers splaying out, before dropping them by her sides. Shrugs in defeat. "Okay."

A smile quirks Bernie’s lips. _Thank you_ forms on her tongue, but before she can offer it, or the Italian again - a promise of good wine and an ear to listen and shoulder for Serena to lean on - Serena turns on foot. "It's not like I have a choice." The office door slams shut behind her.

Bernie slumps down in the nearest chair, Serena's chair. She cradles her head in her hands.

_You well and truly fucked that up._

-

Lunchtime, the next day, they are both in theatre instead of Hanssen's office, Bernie since nine o’clock, Serena since half past – after she was called from her presentation to the board. RCC. Two patients, husband and wife, one stable, one critical.

When the clock strikes twelve, Serena looks across the wife on the operating table, to Bernie. Her eyes narrow above her surgical mask. 

"Don't tell me, now you have no choice but to campaign for my resignation?"

"Serena," Bernie protests. "I - I shouldn't have - "

"Interfered? Stuck your nose where it isn't wanted?"

"I was trying to look out for you."

"Boot me out more like."

"Sorry?"

"With me gone, you can finally have the whole kingdom. All to yourself."

"That's ridiculous." 

"Please, you've been after AAU since the first day. Army major like you. Can't stand sharing power. Relinquishing control." 

"I can't bear to relinquish control? Loosen my grip? Serena, you have -" 

"She's bleeding." Serena cuts in. "Clamps."

The argument is forgotten. They work, in tandem, quick, efficiently. Save the patient's life.  Afterwards, when Bernie peels off her gloves and washes her hands side by side with Serena, tiredness sweeps over her body. The good kind. A satisfied, relieved kind. A _they did all they could for the patient and it was enough kind_ when too many times in their profession it isn't enough. But recovery looks good. They gave the patient more chances than what she came into theatre with. They make a good team, her and Serena, Bernie wants to say as she shakes her hands and reaches for a paper towel. But she doesn't. Because they don't. Not anymore. Not outside theatre. 

Serena washes her hands silently. Leaves without so much as a glance at Bernie. 

-

Later, Bernie passes Serena in the corridor. Bernie's coming from their office, coat on, bag slung over her shoulder, heading to the car park. Serena's walking the other way. Just come out of Hanssen’s offer. Just resigned as Deputy CEO.

"You were right," Serena says. "He couldn't wait to get shot of me."

"We both know that's not true," Bernie counters. "He'd probably been concerned about you. About pressure you’ve got on. Like I am.”

Bernie touches Serena's arm with a softness that matches her voice, fingertips lightly skimming Serena's elbow. Not holding her in place. Just, asking her, for a few moments, to stay. Listen to Bernie. Give her one more chance even though she's screwed things up between them.

"I know," Bernie starts, "that I've said the wrong things, done the wrong things.”

"Likewise." Serena admits. "But today, I think I've done the right thing. Stepping down for a bit."

“Glad to hear it.” Bernie senses Serena is about to walk ahead.

“Want to toast your new-found freedom from the tyranny of the boardroom over a drink?”

“I can’t. Sorry. I promised my mother I’d cut her hair. But . . .” This time it is Serena’s hand on Bernie’s arm, stopping her from leaving. “Another time? Tomorrow? Perhaps?”

“Another time,” Bernie agrees. Turns away with a smile over her shoulder. Fletch stops her at the end of the corridor. “Hanseen says he wants to see you.”

Bernie doesn’t look back, can’t bring herself to, but knows, just knows, Serena is behind her, still within earshot. Has just heard her summons. Knows Hanseen is already offering her old job out. To Bernie.

She refuses point-blank. She’s not stealing Serena’s job, and she’s certainly not transferring her efforts elsewhere, away from AAU, away from the trauma bay where Serena needs her the most. Hanseen tells her to sleep on the offer. Bernie arrives early the next morning, ready to decline once more. She walks into AAU, goes to dump her bags in their office, before seeing if Hanssen’s offer. She finds the blinds of the office closed, the door locked. Serena must have locked it night, Bernie assumes. Fumbles for the key in her pocket and twists it in the lock.

-

As she takes her bags out the car, Serena sighs. Spots a stain on the cuff of her shirt she sure wasn’t there when she put it on this morning. She keeps a spare shirt in her office. She’ll have to change. Can’t have people thinking she can’t take care of herself. Finding another reason to talk her stepping down from more duties. To tell how she’s not fit for work.

-

“Serena?”

Serena jumps. Spins around the door. Clutches her shirt to her heaving chest. “Bernie. What are you . . .” Serena paints a smile on her face. Jokes. “Did they not teach you to knock in the army?”

Gently, Bernie closes the door behind her. “Your back.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Your mother,” Bernie breathes out in realisation. Can’t believe she’s been so blind. Can’t believe she’s only just everything together when the signs were right in front of her.

“It’s her rings. They’re sharp. She doesn’t mean. She doesn’t realise –”

“How long has she . . .?”

“Couple of months.”

“Does Edward know? Have you told anyone?”

“The carers know she’s . . . difficult. That she can become . . .”

“That’s why you keep changing them. Getting care for a violent dementia suffer can’t be easy.”

“She’s not . . . they’re just scratches.”

Bernie moves closer to Serena. “Just scratches?” Serena follows her eyes to her arm, left this time. To the plaster there, wide and half the length of her forearm.

"It was my fault. Last night. I cut her hair too short. Messed it up." Serena explains, breath rushing out her fast, voice cracking. Bernie knows. About this. About her mother. There is no point in excuses or lies. No point hiding it anymore. At least, not to Bernie. She feels relief, but it only lasts momentarily before she feels all the lies she’s told and all the facades she had to uphold, collapse around her. She feels stripped bare, even when she tugs the fresh shirt off the coat hanger next to her, pulls it on.

"She attacked you with scissors?"

Serena mistakes the shock in Bernie's voice for horror. 

Serena's eyes drop to the floor, unable to meet Bernie's. Heat burns her neck and cheeks. She needs to get out this office. Now. Away from Bernie's prying, all the questions on the tip of her tongue. All the judgement. Of Serena. Of her mother.

"Keeping up appearances. It's important to her. She's a proud woman," Serena justifies her mother's behaviour from the night before, voice trailing quiet when she realises from the way that Bernie is looking at her - with pity? concern? understanding? - that she isn't just talking about her mother. 

"I know." Bernie's tone, all softness and knowingness, is too much for Serena. Tears burn Serena’s eyes. Threaten to spill.

"I . . . I need to . . ." Serena grabs a file off her desk. Barrels past Bernie but Bernie catches her arm. Papers fly from the file, scatter on the floor. Serena bends down. Hastily scrapes up the papers. Tries to shuffle them into order, but her hands shake. Tears stream her face. She blinks them back, fixes her eyes on the ground so Bernie can't see them. But it's futile. A sob erupts from Serena's throat. Bernie kneels in front of her. Places hand on Serena's shoulder. Serena eyes flicker up, eyelashes dark and wet, mascara running down her cheeks.

"Oh, Serena."

Serena flings her arms around Bernie, grips tight. Sobs. Bernie wraps her arms around Serena's back and pulls her close. Rubs her back. Murmurs in her ear.

"It's okay. It's going to be okay."

Serena has dropped the papers she collected. They scatter the floor of their office once more, surround them both.  Serena clings to Bernie, lets herself cry for the first time in weeks. Let’s herself, in the arms of her best friend, admit that everything is not okay. Far from it.

She is a mess. This whole thing is a mess. And she knew the second she faced that truth, it would be like yanking a loose thread. She would unravel completely. And she has.  But as she finally falls apart it doesn't feel like giving in. Caving to a rush of helplessness and drowning underneath it. No, it feels like she's finally coming up for air. Finally breathing.

She is falling apart in the middle of her office but Bernie's embrace and the repetition her words - _it's going to be okay, I promise_ \- reassure her.

She will come together again. Stitch by stitch. And Bernie is sewing the first one. 

-

The Monday morning after her mother dies, Serena opens her front door to find Bernie on her doorstep. Two fresh coffees - just brought - in one hand and a carrier bag in her other hand from which pastries peek out the top.

"Bernie?" Serena wraps her arms around her dressing-gown clad body. 

"Brought you breakfast," Bernie explains. _Just in case you had this crazy idea of returning to work today_ , she thinks but doesn't say. Bernie gestures to herself. "And company, if you like?"

Serena unfolds her arms, steps back, welcomes Bernie in. "Not skiving, I hope?"

"Don't worry. Cleared it past Hanssen. Had some leave to use up."

Serena teases her. Asks if she plans on moving in when Bernie sets a nearly bursting carrier bag on Serena's kitchen countertop.

"Just brought a few . . . supplies." Bernie unpacks the pastries, then a pint of milk, bread, teabags, coffee.

"No one told me about any impending siege," Serena quips, but when Bernie looks up, eyes unsure as to whether she's overstepped the mark, Serena rewards her with a warm smile of thanks. A questioning arch of an eyebrow when Bernie pulls the last item from the bag, a tub of raspberry ripple. It's half seven in the morning. 

"For later." Bernie says, voice barely there. It's a question of whether she can stay. Serena responds to by taking the ice cream and stashing it in the freezer. 

"I hope those are too," Serena gestures to the takeout leaflets in the bottom of the bag. "I don't think I could quite stomach chicken korma for breakfast."

Bernie smiles. Holds up a pastry.  "How does pain au chocolat and extra strong coffee sound?"

-

They end up eating on the go, sipping cups of coffee a bit cooler than the perfect temperature. Serena asks Bernie to give her ten, let her pop upstairs and get dressed, before heading out. She fancies a walk. Short, but brisk. Wants to inhale the cold, bracing morning air. Let it clean through her lungs. She wants to get out the house.  _Needs_ to get out the house. Feels cooped up, suffocated, slowly choking on stale air, perfumed by the dozens of flowers given to her, in the past few days, in condolence, filled by the dust already gathering in between the lines of cards expressing more condolences, lined up on the windowsills and cabinets and fireplace. The flowers and cards crowd her. Taunt and shame her with their show of remorse and regret, when all Serena feels is relief at her mother's passing. What kind of daughter is she? What kind of human being?

Bernie waits for Serena downstairs. Pretends not to have seen the tears Serena tried to hide, before she rushed to get dressed. Pretends as well, not to have heard the faint sound of sobs from when Serena returns because she knows she wasn't meant to.

She doesn't say anything. Doesn't press or question Serena for her feelings as they walk the streets. Grief's a messy thing. It's hard enough to work out the feelings yourself, to unwind them, separate the many strands of emotion coiled within you, let alone find a way to articulate them to another person. Especially, if you aren't ready. 

When they reach the park, Serena slumps down on a bench. Bernie joins her, measures out a distance between them, small, but there. Doesn't want to sit too close as to crowd her, but Serena surprises her by shuffling closer. Closing the gap between them so their thighs and arms touch. So, when she can no longer fight back the tears - tears she's held back for days, wiped away after resting her head on her mother's unmoving chest and refused to let fall again - Bernie is there, instantly, for her to lean into. 

It's Bernie leaning in back that breaks Serena's defences. Unleashes the flood. Four days of not crying, believing she didn't need to and all it took was her best friend with a cup of coffee and pastry for her turning up on her door step. No questions, no assumptions but the one that Serena might, if she wanted, need company. Just company. To take or refuse.

"My mother planned it all to the last very letter. Her last wishes. Her will. Her funeral," Serena sobs. "It should be easy to just follow it through, but I can't even pick up the phone."

"None of this is easy, Serena."

"I have a million and one things to do, to sort and I haven't done any of them. Haven't organised the wake. Haven't sorted out her things, what she'll wear. Haven't even told some people, second cousins, her old work friends, that she's . . . that she's gone."

Bernie takes her friend's hand, automatically, instinctively, cradles it within both of hers. 

"Let me take you home," she soothes. "We'll break it down. Do it together."

And they do over ice-cream and Chinese noodles, curled up together on the sofa. Make calls and lists and appointments. Bernie doesn't stay the night, but the next day she returns - ladled with more food, more coffee - and they go to the funeral home. Bernie's hand doesn't leave Serena's as she talks with the woman there about headstones, material, shape, inscriptions. Not once does Serena does let go of Bernie. Not once do they question it. It's something they need, something Serena needs and neither think past that until the day of the funeral.

Until, when night draws in and all the guest have left Serena's home and Bernie is helping her clear away the food from the wake, and Serena stops her, takes a half-eaten platter of sandwiches from Bernie's hands and puts it to the side. 

Until, in the darkness of her kitchen - they've only just entered, hands too full to switch on lights - Serena leans forward. Kisses Bernie. They are both clothed in black, head to toe. Bernie's shirt is rumpled and untucked from her trousers, Serena's heels long discarded and her stockinged feet dusty. 

She is exhausted from keeping it together in church, making sure her voice didn't crack as she gave her speech or sang the hymns. She is exhausted from losing it, breaking down in the cemetery, in Bernie's car on the way back from the church to Serena's home. A moment of solitude before the wake, before she quickly washed her face, put on new mascara, another layer of lipstick and faced a house full of family and friends.

Halfway through the evening, Serena found her daughter on the stairs, crying. She tried coax her outside to talk with the offer of fresh air but Elinor pushed her away. Left before the wake finished, back to uni. Serena doesn't begrudge her that. She's grieving her grandmother. And Serena doesn't blame her for not staying another second in the house, not staying another second by Serena's side - she knows she wouldn't chose to be around herself today.

But someone has. Someone's stood by her side the whole day, only left it once to call Edward a taxi and usher him into it. So, Serena didn't have to worry about the embarrassment of her husband's drunkenness at her mother's wake anymore. Serena can't understand why anyone would have wanted to be around her, sucked into her misery and burdened with grief that's not theirs, these past weeks, but Bernie has. Bernie has been there for her, time after time. Is here now. Is kissing her back. 

The last remnants of Serena's faded lipstick disappear against Bernie's mouth. Bernie, briefly, lets herself sink into the kiss. Let's Serena press closer to her, grip tighter at her waist, kiss her harder but when she feels the push of her tongue, she steps back.

"You're tired." She says as if that explains everything, one married friend kissing their equally married friend. "You need to sleep."

Serena's eyes twinkle. "Good idea."

"Alone," Bernie clarifies. "Go on up. I'll sort this out."

Bernie is left standing in a dark room, mind struggling to sort out a lot of things, namely how, even though Bernie knows Serena's a dyed-in-the-wool-heterosexual and that it was just the stress of the day, just a need for a way to release that, Serena's grief-addled mind searching for comfort and not minding who gave it, man or woman, husband or friend, even though Bernie knows all this, knows it should have felt wrong and dirty, it didn't. It only confirms what she’s known for some time now. But she isn’t a fool to think her wish has come true, is wise enough not to think anymore past it. The trauma of her mother’s illness, her abuse, her death has worn Serena down. She’s vulnerable. She doesn’t need someone taking advantage of her, she needs someone watching out for her.

When later, Bernie sneaks upstairs, tries to be as quiet as possible when pushing open Serena's door and checking on her, Serena catches her out. Her voice, thick and drowsy, calls Bernie through the darkness. 

"Stay."

"Serena, about before - "

"Sleep,” she promises, too weary to form full sentences. “Just . . . sleep."

Bernie pulls off her jacket and trousers, unclips her bra but leaves on her shirt, before climbing into bed. Serena and Edward's bed, she thinks. But she knows he doesn't sleep in here anymore, has had the spare room for months. Bernie, she wonders how long it's been, months, years, since Serena did this? Moved back to the middle of the bed, pressed herself against someone, took their arm, wrapped it around her. How long has it been since Serena let herself be held like this.

-

In the morning, when Serena goes to apologise, says she doesn't know what came over her, Bernie tells her not to worry. To forget about it.

And they do. Bernie ignores the electricity she feels when Serena’s hand brushes her bare arm as they walk into AAU together, the way her heart quickens at her when Serena smiles at her, the way her body floods her desire when they’re in Albies and Serena licks shiraz from her lips, not breaking eye contact with Bernie.

She tells herself it’s not what Serena wants. Not worth ruining their friendship over – doesn’t even think about their marriages. She puts the kiss to the back of her mind, only lets herself pull it forward after she crawls into bed after long shifts and her body needs release.

They never talk about the kiss again until the conference in Stepney. When they’re in the bar of the hotel Hanseen booked for them and Bernie returns from the loo to find a woman by Serena’s side, finds Serena returning her flirtatious smiles. Bernie watches the woman slide a piece paper to Serena, bat long eyelashes and disappear with a smile.

“Who was that?” Bernie asks. Serena picks up on the sharpness in her words. Responds in kind, her voice curt and defensive. 

"No-one." 

"Unusual name." Bernie bends a beer mat with her fingers. Channels her inexplicable feelings of anger that way. 

"You think I'm no better than him, don't you?" With her fingertip Serena traces the rim of her empty wine glass.

"Who?"

"Edward. You think I've stooped to his level. All these of years of complaining about his affairs and the first woman that looks at me in a certain way and - "

"I don't think that." The beer mat snaps in half. "I just didn't think youpaid attention to . . . the way women looked at you?" 

"Neither did I. Until lately." 

Bernie wants to ask how long _lately_ is, starts torturing another beer mat instead.

“You never mentioned any . . . err inclination towards . . . “

“You never asked.”

Serena pushes her wine glass in front of her. Tells Bernie she’s heading back upstairs. Part of wants her not to follow her. She’s frustrated with Bernie, her protectiveness when she was the one who made Serena take a vow of silence about the K-word. Didn’t let her have a say in it. Another part of Serena, however, desperately wishes Bernie to follow her – back to the one-bedroom they told Hanseen wouldn’t be a problem when he explained about a admin mistake – and finally, finally confront her. Kiss her again.

As she takes the lift back up, Serena registers the heat flushing through her body. She’s turned on. Very turned on. And all it took was the barely-constrained jealously in Bernie’s demand. “Who was that?”

Five minutes later, when Bernie knocks at the hotel door – _their_ hotel door – Serena shakes her head at her friend’s noble side, Serena’s heart races. Tells her to come in.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It?"

“Your recent shift to the Sapphic side of the playing field?”

“You make a mid-life sexuality crisis sound as if it's a game one chooses to indulge in."

“I didn’t mean to, trust me. I’m . . . I’m happy for you.” Bernie sits down on the bed. Serena resists the urge to roll her eyes. Bernie is a crap liar on the best of days and Serena doubts she's even trying tonight. “Are you going to ring her?” Bernie persists. “Tomorrow?”

“It isn’t a phone number, Bernie.” Serena steps towards her. Close enough for Bernie’s knees to touch her. “It’s a room number.”

“Oh, are you . . . gonna go?” Bernie wonders if Serena’s shirt had that many buttons undone ten minutes ago, thinks she would have noticed. Feels her cheeks redden as she realises she’s hasn’t looked her friend in the eyes for four long seconds, but rather her neckline, and maybe, a bit lower.

“I don’t know,” Serena’s voice drops low. She twirls the piece of paper in her hand, eyes sparkling. “Are you going to stop me?”

Bernie’s jaw goes slack. It finally clicks. Serena Campbell is coming on to her. Her voice goes dry. She struggles for words. “Do you want me –”

Serena’s mouth cuts her off. Her hand push Bernie back down on the bed. Bernie finds herself straddled by Serena, finds lips attacking her neck, teeth nipping the sensitive skin there before Serena laves the spot with her tongue. Bernie eyes flutter shut involuntarily, open when she feels hands cupping her breasts, fingertips stroking through the fabric of her shirt. She grasps Serena's hands.

"Wait. Are you sure? About this?"

Serena nods. "Are you?"

"More than." Bernie reaches up, for the top button on Serena's shirt. Fingers inching to tear open each one, but her mind telling her to slow down. Take her time.

“I mean," Serena teases, "I could always . . ." Her eyes flick to the scrap of paper that's slipped from her hands. That lies next to them on the bed. Bernie snatches it away. Screws it up in her hand and throws it to the floor. She flips Serena on her back. Plants a searing kiss on her mouth, more across her jawline, down the column of her neck, dragging her tongue to the spot just beneath the middle of Serena's collarbones. Her hands settle on Serena's shirt. Pause for a split second. Yanks it open. Fuck slow, Bernie thinks. A notion echoed soon by Serena's pants of _harder, faster, Bernie, please, oh, fuck,_ as her nails rake Bernie's back, as she clenches down on Bernie's fingers.

Afterwards, when they are a mess of hot, sticky limbs, when Serena has Bernie's wetness on her hand and tastes her own on Bernie's lips, Serena grins triumphantly.

"I knew it."

"Knew what?"

"That you were jealous. That you wanted me." 

"More than you can imagine," Bernie murmurs sleepily into Serena's hair, but Serena bets she could. Bets she has wanted Bernie as much, over the years, needed her as much as Bernie has her.

-

They have one more night in the hotel – and a generously sized bath that both think would be a shame to waste. As Bernie disrobes, steps in the opposite side of the bath to Serena her brain thinks before her mouth.

“I’m gay.”

Serena chuckles as she moves back to give more room for Bernie to sit, the bubbles moving around her.

“Sorry,” Bernie sits down, “I’ve just never . . . said that aloud before.”

“Don’t apologise.” Serena leans forward. Slides her hands around Bernie’s upper back. Draws her close until their mouths are millimetres apart. “But I do have to say, it’s not much of a shocker for me.”

“I’m gay,” Bernie repeats. Breaks into a grin, then laughter. It’s the first time she’s admitted it, accepted it when it was there all along. Before Serena, before Marcus. Bernie pushes him from her mind. After this weekend, her and Serena will have to talk properly. How this can this possibly work when they have husbands, families?

But all she knows right now, all she can think about, is the woman smiling back at her. Face bright and beaming as they both dissolve into giggles. Laughter echoes against the tiles around them, fades out as Serena runs a fingertip under Bernie’s chin, tilts it up. Closes her eyes as Bernie’s lips capture hers.

Whatever’s past, whatever’s to come, Bernie knows this moment, right here, right now, is theirs.

Wholly, completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if this is to people's liking and toned down the angst a bit, but I grew up on hurt/comfort fics from the age of ten and my greatest weakness was always the emotionally damaged characters actually having someone they don't always have to be strong around by their side. 
> 
> I may have listened to 'She Will be Loved' by Maroon Five several times while writing this.


	4. i'll never live to match the beauty again

“What was that?” Serena looks up over her reading glasses and across the desk to Bernie.

Bernie feels her gaze, but doesn’t met her eye. “What was what?”

She continues to scrawl across a piece of paper. Feigns ignorance even though she can hear the unmistakable sound. Even though her mind panics. Oh shit.

“That wheezing sound?” Serena stands up, ready to investigate.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“It might have been a patient.”

There is a voice, Scottish and bellowing, outside their office. Curiosity overcomes Serena.

 _Oh shit_. “Serena, wait.” Bernie jumps out of her chair and follows her girlfriend out onto the ward.

-

“Too milky. I told you Nardole, teabag before the milk.” The doctor opens a compartment in the TARDIS console and tips the liquid away.

“Apologies, sir.” Nardole takes the teacup and turns around, a tray of biscuits in his other hand. The Doctor swipes a custard cream. Bites a piece off and inspects the rest in his hand. “Not a patch on the jammy dodger, but it’ll do.”

“Sorry, but are we taking a tea break right now?” Bill levels. “’Cause last time I checked there was a horde of scary monks trying to take over humanity and we still haven’t figured out a way to stop them?”

“That may be,” Nardole mumbles as he plods around the console to Bill, “but there’s always time for tea.”

The doctor crunches the last of his biscuit. Wipes crumbs off his jacket. “Bill’s right. The negotiations are going nowhere. All the leaders of the world have assembled, representations of the world’s strongest armies, except … they haven’t.”

“What do you mean?” Bill takes a chocolate bourbon from Nardole.

“One’s missing. UNIT.”

“UNIT?”

“Unified intelligence taskforce. Secret military organisation that takes care of the alien threats when I’m not around.”

“Like a babysitter? For earth?” Bill asks.

“Sort of.”

“So, we’re going to go and find them. Ask them why they aren’t doing their job properly?”

The Doctor shakes his head. “With situations like these UNIT can be as delicate as a bull in a china shop.” The Doctor types in coordinates on the console. “They’d probably just blow everything up and say job done. But there is a person who values science over war. Who could negotiate peace.”

“Where are they?”

“On sabbatical.”

The doctor pushes down a lever and the TARDIS spirals through space.

-

“Hello, earthlings!” The Doctor waves his arms.

“Not condescending in the least.” Bill says, stepping out the TARDIS after him.

“Yeah, didn’t have quite the boom I was hoping for.”

“Admit it,” Bill teases. “It sounded better in your head.” She scans the ward around her. Looks normal. Earth-like. Bewildered patients in beds, that horrible, sickly sweet smell of hospital and the beeping of machines, but it’s quiet. Peaceful, almost.

They have landed where a patient bed would be. As casually as possible, Bill draws the curtain around the TARDIS. Hides the spaceship.

Bill wonders where the trouble is. Searching for an old friend from UNIT or not, there must be trouble. This is the Doctor after all. Then she realises, as two women advance towards them, one looking extremely perplexed, the other extremely furious, that the trouble this time is the Doctor.

“What are you doing here?” The blonde woman fumes.

“Ah, Bill,” the Doctor says, “here is she. Chief Scientific officer of UNIT.” The Doctor turns to the brunette woman. “And you must be the wife.”

“Doctor!” Bernie hisses.

“Doctor?” Serena questions. Studies the strange man in jeans and boots, with grey hair and a grey hoodie beneath a black coat. “At Holby?”

“If you’re under-staffed then, yeah, I could maybe throw in my cap and do a few –”

“And I’m Bill,” Bill interrupts, knowing that the Doctor is getting side-tracked. She smiles at the blonde woman. Offers her hand without thinking. The blonde shakes it. Her grip is firm, her skin soft and her smile – _her smile_. “Ah, Miss Potts, I wondered when we’d met.”

Bill nearly faints on the spot.

She’s taken, Bill reminds herself. The Doctor said wife. She’s taken, but when did that ever stop Bill’s hands from growing clammy and her heart speeding up? It certainly isn’t now.

“Bernie, you know these people?” The brunette asks, folding her arms – just as Bill is about to offer her hand again.

“You haven’t told her?” The Doctor asks Bernie.

“Told me _what_?”

“Oh, well,” he grasps the lapels of his jacket. Bounces on the balls of his feet. “We’ll have to save the life-altering revelations for some fun on a rainy day.” He spins around. “Kate, I need you in the TARDIS.”

Sauntering away, the Doctor calls back: “Feel free to bring the missus.” He slips in between the curtain, strokes the door of the TARDIS. “I always bring mine.”

“Doctor _wait_ ,” Bernie darts after him. Disappears behind the curtain.

“Funny,” Serena tells Bill, “I’ve never seen her so unquestioningly follow the orders of a man.”

“The Doctor isn’t just any man,” Bill says.

“And I’m not just any woman. This is my ward and I want to know what on earth is going on.”

“So, you’re like the boss around here?”

“Co-lead,” Serena replies. Nods in the directions of where Bernie ran. “We’re partners.”

“And you’re together? You know, not just partners, but partners _partners_.”

“Yes. We are.”

“Isn’t it weird though, working with –”

“Miss Potts, why are you stalling me from following them?”

“Because,” Bill turns sheepish, “the Doctor asked me to.”

“And do you always do whatever he asks you?”

“No, it’s just . . . I was also . . . I was interested.” Bill stutters. Her eyes flicker up to the woman’s forehead that crease in confusion. Down to her glasses, her eyes. _Too intense._ Bill’s gaze drops to the floor. Kate Stewart is taken. Her wife is incredibly hot. “I mean . . .” Bill wants to say she wasn’t just asking questions on the Doctor’s orders, she was genuinely because, well, she’s _one_ of them too, these women. Of course, Bill doesn’t say that. Her brain panics and her mouths blurts out words.

“I’m gay.”

“Good for you,” Serena smiles, puzzled but endeared by the Doctor’s companion. “Welcome to the team.” 

-

“You’ve just jeopardised my entire undercover!” Kate seethes, entering the TARDIS.

“Humanity’s under threat. I’m sure it was nice playing doctors and nurses, but –”

“How dare you!”

“What?”

“That was very rude, Doctor,” Nardole’s voice pipes up.

“Was it? Sorry, I was aiming for complimentary. I always get those things mixed up. Or that’s what River always says.”

“He gets the tenses mixed up to,” Nardole whispers to Kate. Proffers a plate. “Biscuit?”

“Uh . . . no. Thank you. Doctor,” Kate orders, “explain to me. What’s going on? How bad is it?”

“Badder than bad,” he replies. “We’re seconds away from the world being plunged into a totalitarian regime and every person on the planet being brain washed into thinking it’s for their own good. You lot? You really don’t learn from history.”

“And you really don’t bother to check your memos, do you?”

“Who does? Now memes, however, they’re – “

“Doctor, I told you not to disturb me here. If you needed, you should have rung before. Left an e-mail. Sent me a bloody coded meme.”

“There wasn’t time. There isn’t time. We need to stop the monks before they –”

“We’re in a time machine,” Kate stresses. “This can wait. I need to talk to Serena.”

“Plus-ones are fine, I told you,” The Doctor assures.

Kate pivots on foot to the TARDIS doors. Comes face to face with an open-mouthed Serena. After a couple of stunned seconds, Serena looks past Kate and narrows her eyes at the Doctor.

“I believe,” she says, “that you are clogging up one of my patient beds.”

-

“Now, this _definitely_ calls for tea,” Nardole chimes in when Serena storms out of the TARDIS.

“It’s just shock. Her entire perception of time and space has just been irrevocably altered,” the Doctor breezes after happily supplying Serena with the information that yes, this was a space ship and yes, aliens did exist.

Kate dashes after her girlfriend. _Serena’s entire perception of her, their relationship, has just been irrevocably altered._

She finds Serena in the Peace Garden. Holds out a steaming cup to her.

“It’s not coffee, but it is strong and hot.” Kate thought Nardole’s suggestion of tea might have some merit and when Serena takes it, albeit with a huff, she’s proved right. Gingerly, Kate perches on the bench. Leaves a good amount of space between her and Serena.

“Don’t tell me,” Serena raises the cup to her lips, “this is some sort of weird alien formula to make me forget everything I’ve just seen?"

“I would never do that to you,” Kate promises.

“But you would lie to me for months.” Serena chucks the tea in the grass next to them. Kate winces. “Were you _ever_ going to tell me?” Serena sets the empty cup on the bench between them with a clink. “I mean, all this time, Bernie? But that’s not your real name is it. Kate Stewart. Defender of earth. Chief Scientific Officer of U.N.I.T, whatever that means.”

 _Defender of earth,_ Kate inwardly curses the Doctor and his extravagant introductions.

“I was . . . going to tell you,” Kate stammers, “I was just scared. That you’d run a mile.”

“Rich, coming from you.”       

“I know.”

“Did you even go to Ukraine?”

“I did. For a few days.”

“But not for a trauma unit?”

 “UNIT needed me back. There was a worldwide crisis. A peace treaty we’d drawn up between humans and another race wasn’t working. There was a threat of rebellion. Of war.”

“But now there isn’t? There’s peace.”

“Touchwood.”

“So, the weeks of radio silence?”

“I had no choice, I’m sorry. Communication was too risky. Could have jeopardised the operation.” _It could have linked you to me, could have put you in danger,_ Kate adds in her head.

“But you came back, you told me you liked me and you carried on lying to my face,” Serena’s eyes drop away from Kate’s, but not before Kate spots the wetness in them. “Was any of it real?”

Kate picks up the cup and shifts closer to Serena. “I do like you. More than like you. Serena, I lo –”

The wheezing of the TARDIS eats away Kate’s last words.

“Sorry,” The Doctor sees Kate’s glare, “are you not finished? Human domestics, they can take so long.”

“Says the man who sulked amongst otters for months,” Kate retorts. “Yes. Your wife told me.”

“Touché.”

“What are you doing here?” Serena asks, ungrateful for the interruption.

“Finding another parking spot for the motor.”

“Well, it’s not here.” Serena doesn’t want this man in the Peace Garden. She wonders if he even understands the concept of peace. Of leaving someone in it.

“Try the roof,” Kate suggests, “should be empty.”

Soon enough, the Doctor and the TARDIS disappears.

“Your accident? The I.E.D?” Serena questions, knowing that the scars she’s felt beneath her fingertips are real. “If you weren’t in the army, then . . .”

“I was in the British army. When I was younger. I am still, technically, in the armed forces. UNIT – unified intelligent taskforce. It’s a military organisation.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I fell,” Kate explains, “out of a plane.”

“You _fell_. Out of a _plane?_ How did you survive?”

“Sheer luck, I think.” Kate decides that explaining the Cyberman’s last invasion, their recycling of the dead into warriors, can maybe wait for now. As can the tale of how her dead father broke her fall. He saved her life, but it wasn’t a smooth landing and she ended up in Holby. Requested the transfer herself after the reports of Zygon activity in the area.

“You nearly died,” Serena cups Kate’s cheek with one of her hands. Her heart clenches in the same way it does when, in their bedroom, she runs a finger, or trails her lips down the scar that bisects her lover’s chest. _She could have lost her, before she even knew her name. Before they found each other._

“But I didn’t.” Kate turns her head. Presses her lips to the inside of Serena’s wrist. “I’m here. You found me,” she reassures, reading Serena’s worried mind.

“You said you were in the army. And you do all this UNIT stuff. Undercover operations. Saving the world. When did you have time to train as a trauma surgeon?” Serena draws back her hand, draws back from Kate. “You _are_ a doctor, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Kate chuckles. “Fully qualified, I assure you. As for time to train, I was a whizz kid. Managed to fast-track a lot.”

“Fast-track medicine?” Serena asks, disbelieving.

“I was a pretentious swot in my youth. You would have hated me.”

“Hardly,” Serena quips. “Takes one to know one.”

“Ever since I was a child, I wanted to join UNIT,” Kate explains. “My father worked for them. But I knew I didn’t want to fight. I wanted to heal.”

Serena smiles. She knows how much, Bernie, _Kate_ , admired her father. How much this job, following in his footsteps, must mean to her. Some of it starts to make sense, but there are still a hundred unanswered questions.

“If you’re undercover, at Holby?” Serena asks. “What have you been investigating?”

Their pagers bleep before Kate can respond.

-

Kate opens her office door. Is unsurprised when she sees the Doctor in her chair, feet up on the desk. Munching on a packet of digestives.

“I figured it was you calling.” Kate closes the door behind her. Crosses her arms.

“Where’s Serena?”

“Where have you been?”

“Waiting.”

“Your hair looks two inches longer. Your face is sunburnt.”

The doctor springs up. Pulls out a mirror from one of his jacket pockets. Inspects his face.

“Told you, you could have borrowed some of my sun-screen. But, no,” Bill imitates a Scottish bellow, “Timelords do not bow to the whims of suns. Even if there are five of them.”

Kate laughs. “So not just waiting. How long were you gone for?”

“Two days,” The Doctor says.

“Two months,” Bill says. “But there were these tiny angry mutant robots trying to infect the water and control the minds of whoever drank it. And it kept getter hotter and hotter –apparently, global warnings not just an earth thing – so everyone was dying for water, but the robots controlled the source, so if people wanted to live, they had to buy it and enslave themselves and, sorry, I’m rambling –”

“Just tell me,” Kate asks Bill. “That he’s taking good care of you.”

“Oi!” The Doctor protests.

“I take care of him,” Bill jokes.

“That’s my girl.” Kate smiles and Bill feels herself go weak at the knees. Must clutch the desk when Kate moves closer to her and hands her a card. “But, truly, if he isn’t, call me.”

 _Get in,_ Bill thinks. It may be a business card, but technically she just got Kate Stewart’s number.

-

In the ladies’ toilets, Serena takes a deep breath. Splashes cold water on her face, before pulling a paper towel from the holder next to her. So, Bernie isn’t Bernie. She’s Kate. Kate Stewart who fights aliens. It sounds ridiculous in her head, but she’s seen the truth with her own eyes. Or at least the inside of that blue box. _The doctor’s_ blue box. She wonders if all aliens are annoying as he is.

She reaches in her handbag for her lipstick. When she looks back up, she freezes. In the mirror, she sees a cubicle door open. But it is not a human that appears.

She drops the lipstick. It clatters in the sink.

-

“So, these things, Zygons, some of them work at this hospital?” Bill asks Kate.

“I thought they did.”

“You haven’t found any?”

Kate shakes her head. “The threat level’s the lowest it has ever been. There was a surge when I arrived, but now. Nothing.”

“They’ve probably integrated fully into society.  Don’t want any trouble. The monks on the other hand . . . “ The doctor says. “Still, I should probably go and scan the ward.” The Doctor flips his sonic screwdriver in his hand and dashes out the office.

“He gets a bit tetchy,” Bill explains.

“Oh, I know. He’s like a bored child, sometimes, I bet?”

“Just a bit.” Bill smiles. “Can I ask . . . if the Zygons are living peacefully and there’s no threat,” Bill says. “Why did you stay?”

“Sometimes, you don’t need The Doctor by your side  to see the wonders of the universe.”

“Bernie!” At Serena’s cry, Kate runs out the office. Onto the ward. Bill rushes after her. The Doctor stops his scanning and runs up to the three women.

“Bernie, there was,” Serena tugs with the pendant of her necklace “There is, in the toilets, a thing. A creature.”

“Big red sucker-y thing?” The Doctor asks and grins when Serena nods. “Bingo!”

“Guys,” Bill alerts them, looking down the corridor.

Kate follows Bill's line of sight. “ _Oh God_.” A woman is half-running, half-striding towards them and she looks exactly like Serena. When she reaches them, she repeats the exact same words the first Serena had told her.

“Let me guess,” The doctor says. “She doesn’t have a twin.”

“One’s more than enough,” Kate’s mouth works before her brain.

“Hey.” Both Serena’s object in unison. They circle each other, suspiciously. 

“Funny,” one of them remarks, “everything truly does look different from another angle.”

The other one smiles wickedly. A gleam in her eye. “You’re telling me.”

Kate feels a headache coming on as her girlfriend, and her girlfriend’s duplicate, continue to flirt. She feels something else, as well. But she pushes _those_ thoughts quickly away.

“There’s gotta be a way to tell the difference?” Bill says.

“They’re linked telepathically. Share the same knowledge. Memories. It’s harder than you think,” the Doctor tells her. “What do you want?” He asks the two women, one zygon, one human. “You were in hiding, living peacefully here, what’s changed? What do you want?”

“Oh please, Doctor,” the two women drawl, “only a bit of fun.”

-

A while later, the zygon shifts form. Kate looks to the woman standing opposite her, a perfect duplicate of her image.

“Oh, not again,” Kate says.

“Hang on?” Serena asks. “This has happened before. And you _didn’t_ tell me?”

“Now which is Kate?” Bill asks. 

“Tests of knowledge wouldn’t work, right?” Serena looks to the Doctor. “What about physical ones?”

“Physical ones?” Bill looks from Kate to Kate, confused.

Until Serena walks up to one of the women and kisses her, hard.

“I suppose it’s um . . . worth a try,” Bill says, feeling the need to avert her eyes.

“Do they realise that human bodies are weak and feeble and can only last a pitiful amount of time without air?” The Doctor muses.

After Serena kisses the other Kate, Bill raises her eyebrows. Stammers. “One of them was a Zygon. She . . . she just kissed a Zygon. A big red sucker-y thing?”

“I’m really not in a position to judge,” the Doctor says.

-

Everything sorts itself out, in the end. Turns out the Zygon wasn’t malicious, just very mischievous. They never figure out the identity. Who it is. But it promises to live in peace. Kate doesn’t wholly believe it, and when the Doctor asks her to travel with him, she refuses once more – on account that someone must man the guard at Holby.

“We’re in a time machine,” the Doctor repeats Kate’s earlier words. Gestures to the interior of the TARDIS. “I can have you back in time for tea.”

“Maybe another time,” Kate replies. “You, Bill, Nardole. You’ll figure it out. I’m needed here, Doctor. I have a duty _here.”_

“I understand,” the Doctor acquiesces. “But Kate Stewart without UNIT? Will you ever return?”

"One day,” Kate promises. “Soon.”  Kate turns to Bill. “It was lovely to meet you, Miss Potts.”

“Bill, please,” Bill insists, melting a little inside. “And likewise.”

“Now both of you,” Kate smiles, before turning towards the TARDIS. “Go and save earth.”

After she leaves, Bill asks the Doctor. “Will we see her again? Her and Serena?”

He grins. “Sooner than you think.”

-

And, after they defeat the monks, they do. They travel three years into the future.

Bill rests her arm on the table, rests her head on her palm. Smiles dreamily. In her T-shirt and jeans, she sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the other guests.

(“You could have told me to get dressed up.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. Surprise!”)

“That could be you one day,” the Doctor says as they watch Kate and Serena dance.

“I know.” Bill blinks back tears. She always gets emotional at weddings. She didn’t quite manage to hold back the tears as she listened to the speeches. “Scary, right?" Bill responds to the Doctor's suggestion. "But brilliant, at the same time?”

“Totally,” the Doctor agrees.

As the song ends and the strains of Fleetwood Mac float away, Bill hears the tell-tale rustle of paper. “Where did you get them from?”

“Doctor?” Kate cuts through the crowds of people, towards the table. “Are you eating fish and chips at my wedding?”

“Why? Want some?” He holds them up.

“ _Bill_.” Serena appears beside Kate, but her warm smile at Bill quickly drops when she turns to the Doctor. “Doctor,” she greets, curtly.

“Mrs Wolfe,” he greets back. “Lovely do. Lots of shiraz.”

Serena follows his gaze to the dozens of wine bottles on the table next to the cake across the room. They weren’t there earlier this evening. Later, Serena will find a piece of paper next to bottles. _To Mrs and Mrs Wolfe._

(Kate has returned to UNIT now, but Serena still calls her Bernie and to their colleagues Holby, where Serena still works, she will always be known as Bernie. Serena wanted to marry Berenice Wolfe, the woman she fell in love with and Kate was happy with that, _more than_ , still in slight shock that Serena had said yes in the first place.)

Later, Serena will inspect the Doctor’s wedding gift.  Some of the bottles are vintage. Decades old and atrociously expensive. Serena will pick one up to admire and wonder if, just maybe, all those years ago, she was a bit too harsh in her first judgement of the Doctor.


	5. all this love melting under blue skies

She waits.

After all, it is unchivalrous to wake a sleeping woman to say the very least. It is nice to put her feet up for a bit, but she thinks that shedding off her armour, however burdensome and heavy it feels, isn’t appropriate either. Making one’s self at home, when one wasn’t invited but rather crept past a dragon and scaled tower walls to the highest room in the highest turret of the castle.

But she allows herself the luxury of taking off her helmet. She turns to the window of the turret. The view is quite breath-taking. A clear blue sky with the sun shimmering on the water that encircles the castle, glinting off the leaves of the deep, scrawling forests she herself battled through for days. 

The view is not a match for the beauty, however, of the sleeping princess.

When she rouses, she sees the back of a figure. Stealthily, she sits up and grasps the poker by the empty fireplace. She stands straight, poised and ready. Points the poker at the intruder.

“How dare you kill him,” she shouts. “Raf is trained to slay any and every man on sight.”

For years now, she has lived happily alone. The castle is spacious and hers to roam freely. The library boundless. She has Raf so she is never truly lonely. On the days that she does crave human company, she reminds herself of the alternative. Marrying one of the suitors who would take her hand - and every last scrap of her independence away. The men that try and fail, again and again, to worm their way into her home. Could you imagine their sense of sheer masculine entitlement if they succeeded? How they would expect her to fall to their feet in gratitude for rescuing the damsel in distress? How they would expect her to follow them like a servant? How they would expect her to ride back with them on a tall and gallant - and overcompensating for something - steed to their kingdom and then to the wedding altar?

Luckily, she and Raf have warded off every single one of the men. Until now.

“Your dragon’s called Raf?’ Bernie turns around, voice full of disbelief.

At the woman’s charming smile, Serena drops the poker and it clatters to the floor.

“You’re … you’re a woman?” Serena stammers.

“I am, my lady,” Bernie replies. “And don’t worry I didn’t slay your dragon. He fell asleep just after I crossed the moat.”

A mix of frustration and concern, but not surprise crosses Serena’s face. Raf is old and has not been well for sometime. She assumed, when she sensed the intruder, that is why they were able to kill him. On his worst days, she doubts that her dragon could slay a mouse, let alone a man.

“I think,” Bernie adds, ”that he has the Wheezing Cough. But I can’t be certain, until I take a look.”

“You mean to say you’re a doctor? For his kind?”

Bernie nods. “I got your raven asking for help. I’m sorry I took so long, but it is not an easy ride through the forests.”

“I enchanted them myself,” Serena says with an air of smugness.

“You enchanted them well. Are you a sorceress?”

“Just a hobby on the side.” Along with learning the poetry of Sappho off by heart, Serena wants to add - when Bernie’s eyes sparkle like no jewel Serena owns, and she owns myriads - but Serena thinks that might just be too forward. Instead, she says something far less flirtatious.

“I have tried spells and potions  to ease his ills, but nothing works.”

Bernie gestures to a bag by her feet. “Wheezing cough is a common, but very troublesome malady. Only one herb will soothe it. I have it with me.”

“Thank you,” Serena smiles. “I can take you to him now.”

“If I may have one request first?” Bernie asks. “Might I undress?”

Serena colours. “Undress?

“I mean, the armour it’s - “

“Oh, of course, of course.” Serena waves a hand and dashes out the room, slightly breathless.

-

As they near the dozing dragon, Bernie turns to Serena.

“Has he been whining or growling? Sometimes they lose control of their fire. Any intermittent exhale of smoke or flame?”

Just then, the creature stirs in his sleep. Coughs out a blaze of fire. In Bernie’s direction.

Serena pushes the other woman to the floor. Ends up, somehow, on top of her. Both of them miraculously unscathed. At first, Serena forgets how close their bodies are pressed together, how this is the first human contact she has had in years and how it is quite a lot of _literal_ contact and not in the least unpleasant, aside from the fall. Serena bursts out in laughter. Bernie follows suit, great, loud honks that Serena will soon try to quiet with a tap of her fingertip on Bernie’s lips and a warning that the noise could jolt the dragon awake and summon another accidental inferno, and then when this does not work, a gentle kiss that Bernie will quickly deepen.

But for now, lying on top of Bernie, Serena laughs, for the first time in years.

“Define intermittent,” she chuckles.

- 

Afterwards, when Bernie has taken her horse - " _You named your horse Fletch?_ " - into the courtyard and it falls asleep next to Raf, Serena invites her back into the castle. She offers Bernie wine, red and luscious and made by her own hand, from the tangle of enchanted vines at the edge of the forest. 

Bernie wonders, briefly, as she sips the wine whether it too is enchanted. She feels warm and drowsy, but the journey had been long and arduous and she decides that it is just good wine. Nothing magical or mysterious about it. 

Unlike the owner of the castle. 

"You leave then?" Bernie asks. "To fetch the grapes?"

"In the summer," Serena replies with a smile, "when they are ripe and full." 

"So you are free to come and go?"

"If I wear a cloak, yes. A girl needs a little adventure." 

"Where do you go?"

"To the taverns. The men go there at night."

"I thought you did not like menfolk."

"Not particulary, but," Serena sighs, "they have their uses."

"A girl gets lonely?"

"A girl gets bored." Serena swills her wine glass in her hand, eyes gleaming. 

-

"So," Serena says later as she rests her head on Bernie's chest, lying on top of her in a four-poster bed draped with silk curtains and home to the finest sheets in all the kingdom, "when shall we set the date?"

"Date?" Bernie asks, voice faint.

"For the marriage. I mean the nearest catherdral is only three days ride from here. Don't worry, if you wear your armour, we can pretend -" Serena bursts out in laughter, unable to control it any longer. "Oh, your face, dear Berenice."

Bernie flips Serena over so that she is on top in a perfect gesture of _that_   _was not one bit amusing_. 

Two, however she thinks, can play at that game. She turns solemn. "I suppose, it is only right, since I have divested you of your flower and spoiled your innocence."

Serena's laughter increases. "Well, I bloody hope so," she says, hands drifting along Bernie's back. "But . .  ." She kisses Bernie. "Just to be sure." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ???? 
> 
> I don't know okay. I just don't know??
> 
> I thought I couldn't write a weirder AU than Titanic but I outdid myself somehow.


	6. there are violets in your eyes, there are guns that blaze around you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonder Woman AU. Serena is a WW1 doctor. Bernie is an Amazon.
> 
> Part 1 of 2.

Serena watches her as she sleeps. This strange woman with a halo of golden curls and a face that looks as if it is sculpted from marble. Her cheekbones are high and sharp, her nose strong like the Roman statues. The woman's body is the body of a soldier. Strong and athletic and scattered with scars. There are dozens of white stripes, on her arms, stomach, chest. Many are faded and years old, but there are newer ones. There are wounds healing into scars. A nasty gash on her arm for instance, wrapped up with cloth.

The bullet wound, for instance, just below her shoulder. Serena can tell it’s been tended to, but not looked after. Serena’s been treating it. Seeing that the injured woman got the rest she needed. This woman of mystery.

-

It’s Serena’s day off. She’s out in the city for the first time in weeks. Breaks are scarce and short. The war does not stop because your body is shaking from lack of sleep or food or both. The Germans do not stop shooting their men and the solders do not stop, in one never-ending trail of broken and bloodied bodies, spilling through the hospital doors.

“I understand you just lost a man,” Hanseen tells her, after calling Serena into his office. “And that his injuries were like your husband’s when he . . .”

“I assure you, grief is not clouding my judgement. I can work, or I would, if you let me.”

“Nevertheless, Doctor Campbell,” Hanseen temples his fingers. “Exhaustion is.  I need people who care for the injured and sick, not ones who become sick themselves from the task. You will take the rest of the day and tomorrow of.”

“Of course,” Serena answers, infuriated – she does not need rest, she will sleep tonight, Nurse Digby oversees the night shift and is more capable of manning the guard in Serena’s absence. “I’m sure the Germans are putting their feet up to.”

“They might soon. There is talk of the end, Serena.”

“There is always talk.”

Not strictly true, Serena knows. Some months, like the summer of 1916, she and everyone working in the hospital couldn’t fathom an end to the horror.

There isn’t always talk of the end, but there are always prayers. Not that she wastes her energy on prayers anymore. She’s been a doctor for nearly twenty years now. Before the war, she saw nothing like this. Nothing like what man can inflict on man. Nothing like the bullets or shells. Nothing like the gas.

Four years and she can’t get used to it, but she hopes she never does. This is not normal, she reminds herself, the horrific injuries she sees or the screams of agony she hears every day.

She tries to not let follow her out the hospital doors. On her afternoon off, she stands in the middle of the streets of the city, stares up and tries to will her mind as clear as the sky. It’s a perfect, unblemished blue and foreign to her eyes after days of brown uniforms caked in blood and mud.

Serena inhales the sweet smell of lavender, from a source she can’t spot. She feels the warmth of the sun her cheeks. Watches the rays glimmer on the hood of a motor car. Sees a woman, cloaked in black, step out onto the road.

“Watch!”

Serena runs and pushes her out of the way. On the pavement, the woman stumbles back from Serena. Blinks in bewilderment, eyes tracking the motor as it disappears around a corner.

“What was that whining or growling?”

Her voice is surprisingly calm for a woman who just scraped death, but her face is a dangerous pallor. She staggers. Faints in Serena’s arms.

-

In the morning, Serena watches the woman as she sleeps in bed. Underneath her black cloak, she wore barely any clothes. If you could call her armour – the breast plate or woven leather skirt or knee-high boots – clothes. Serena found a knife strapped in a belt at her waist. Another tucked in her left boot.

She looked ready to fight a war, but Serena wasn’t sure which one. Where on earth was the woman from? Question after question swirls around Serena’s head – about the woman’s mumblings in her sleep, the names Diana and Ares, about how she wound up here in the city, who shot her – but Serena pushes the questions aside in her mind, at least until the woman is awake and able to answer them. Whoever this woman is, she is first and foremost Serena’s patient.

When Serena hears the woman finally stir, she rises and turns to pour her the glass of woman she will soon ask for. When she faces her again, the woman is sat up in bed, sheets circling her waist and nightgown pulled down, inspecting – with an awkward tilt of her head and a prod of fingertips – her bullet wound.

“Careful,” Serena instructs. The woman’s eyes snap up.

“Serena Campbell,” Serena introduces herself. “How are you feeling?”

“I . . . I . . .” The woman squeezes her eyes shut momentarily, before jumping up out of bed and muttering something about Diana and how they must leave immediately.

“Now, you’ll do no such thing.” Serena places hand on the woman’s good shoulder and steers her back to the bed. “I’ll not be having you collapse into another woman’s arms.”

As a General, Bernie recognises an order when she hears one, even if it is her usually giving them.

“I need to find the war,” she protests, taking the glass of water Serena hands her.

“Looks like you already have.”

“I need to find Diana.”

Serena asks the next logical thing. "Who is she?"

Simple question, simple answer, except it's not.

-

Serena wonders whether the woman her head whilst or after sustaining her injuries, but there are no sounds of a wound or concussion. Ruling that out, she thinks of the men whose minds do not return whole from the war, thinks how even their days are splintered by nightmares and delusions. Serena knows the woman is a soldier and knows how the horrors of war can twist a person’s reality.

She listens sceptically to the woman.

She is General Berenice Wolfe in search of her niece, Diana. She is from the Island of Themyscira, home to the Amazons, female warriors created by the Gods of Mount Olympus to protect humankind. Ares, son of Zeus, slew his fellow Gods before he was struck down by his father. But the Amazons now fear the God of War has returned, wages his wrath on the human race.

Bernie tells Serena of the day German boats came ashore Themyscira, how the Amazons fought with swords and arrows, but faced bullets. Bernie intercepted one for Diana. Bernie thought she was dying as she lost consciousness. When she woke up days later, she was told of how Diana had left with an Allied Soldier for the human world to find and defeat Ares. It was the girl's destiny and Bernie herself had trained her for it.

"You think a girl," Serena asks, horrified, "was born to kill?”

"No," Bernie replies, "she was born to save." Bernie explains how they all knew that one day war would return and Diana would stop it. "When I heard that she'd gone, I went to follow her, so she would not have defeat Ares alone." 

"You are wounded," Serena levels. Even if she struggles to believe Bernie, her injuries are indisputable. She needs rest. "You are not fit to go and fight any war.”

"A good General does not abandon her soldiers."

"A good General knows if they have trained them well to fight their own battles. You will stay here," Serena orders, "until tomorrow. You are my patient."

Bernie acquiesces, for now, but she knows, soon, she must leave. Diana does not know that the Godkiller – the weapon she left Themyscira with – is a lie. It is not powerful enough to kill Ares. Only Diana is. She is the Godkiller and Bernie must find and tell her.

Serena says that she must leave to fetch something for dinner, but will be back soon. Before she leaves the room, Bernie calls her name.

“Wait,” Bernie says. “I just . . . thank you.”

"You're very welcome," Serena smiles. It is warm and true, but the moment she exits the house it shifts a frown. She can just about wrap her head around the woman's strange words, but there is a growing ache at her temples. Bernie's words simply can't carry an ounce of truth, can they?

Serena is only three streets away from her house when she sees a woman reading a newspaper. She nearly drops her grocery bag.

Kaiser Wilheim has abdicated.

-

Serena rushes home with the groceries in a state of disbelief. They are saying it is only days now. They are saying the war will be over within days.

Maybe Bernie's words were true. Serena isn't sure how much she believes in Gods, but maybe there is a woman called Diana and maybe she did fight and help end the war.

When she returns home, Serena’s good mood is marred by the sight of Bernie, up and out of bed, black cloak draped across her shoulders, about to sneak off. She is at the end of the hallway, peering through the door to the sitting room.

Serena coughs to get her attention.

"And just where do you - "

"What is the purpose of men?"

"Sorry?"

"Aside from reproduction, what is their purpose?"

“If you ask me, all that men seem to be good is shooting at each other. Or at least,” Serena adds when she follows Bernie’s gaze to Jason, “most men.”

"Who he is?"

"My nephew. He is a pacifist and doesn't believe war is ever justified."

"Even when it is necessary?"

"He does not believe it is necessary, or ever the logical option." 

"Do you think that too?"

Serena avoids Bernie's question. "Your niece, Diana, I think she found Ares." 

-

"I have not spent a penny on clothes in four years I'm afraid," Serena tells Bernie, after managing to cajole her back into bed and agree to stay. "But we are about the same height. I can take in some of my dresses, if that's alright?"

Bernie thanks her, although she is still confused as to why she needs new clothes. 

When Serena searches through her clothes for Bernie, she realises just how old and worn they are. She wears her uniform for work and if she is not at work, normally she is asleep, having collapsed into bed. For years she has not had the time to care for clothes, or her appearance outside of work. Three years ago, she cut her hair, tired of the hassle. She fixes on a hair piece when she goes out for propriety, but she often does not need to bother. Her white muslin cap hides the truth, or 'damage' as Edward once called it.

She unpins the hairpiece - from this morning's outing - when she returns to Bernie to announce the change of plan. At some point, they will need to go shopping, but Serena has found one dress that will suffice for the time being. 

"Your hair," Bernie says when Serena enters the room.

"All the women in my family went grey early," Serena explains. "I was fortunate for a while, but it's finally caught up with me. I blame the war.”

Bernie steps close to Serena. "May I?" 

At Serena's nod, she brushes her fingers over Serena's silver hair. 

"A lot of the Amazons have hair like this. We have a saying. We say that the moon has shone upon them for their victories."

"Victories?"

"We do not have war, but we know battle.” Bernie trails her fingers through Serena’s hair. “Silver is often the mark of a great warrior."

Serena tries not to flinch. She hates the term, warrior, hates how glamourizes the act of killing. “I am not a soldier.”

"No," Bernie gently withdraws untangles her fingers from Serena’s scalp. "But you have known war. I see it your eyes." 

Serena steps back. Drops her eyes away Bernie's intense stare.

"Let's see about that dress."

-

Serena is an excellent seamstress. Takes Bernie’s measurements –  so quickly that Bernie misses Serena’s warm hands on her skin – and alters the dress without fuss. After she buttons up the back for Bernie and moves in front of her, Bernie takes hold of her hands.

“You are very skilled.”

"Well, once you can stitch up a body, fabric isn't too difficult." 

Bernie studies Serena’s hands. Serena has told her that she is a doctor. That she treats the soldiers of war. Bernie wonders how many people Serena's hands have stitched up, how many people have bleed out hands. Her skin is calloused and rough after the hundreds of time she has scrubbed them with soap.

Serena's hands are healer's hands. 

Bernie lets them go, looks down at her own hands. She wonders how many times they have wielded a sword or bow and arrow like another limb. She wonders how many Germans her hands killed on the island. She does not, however, regret the number. They were the enemy. They brought war. And Bernie helped stop them.

-

Tomorrow, when Bernie complains of feeling cooped and Serena decides a little exercise won’t hurt, they are stroll along the river and Bernie sees a man and woman pass them.

"Why are they holding hands?"

"Because they are together."

Bernie goes to slip her hand into Serena's, but Serena draws her hand away on the pretext of patting down her hair. 

"We're . . .” Serena says, “we're not together."

"I don't understand. I thought we –”

"Yes, we’ve out walking together, but they . . . They're . . . together together." 

"What is the difference?"

"They are a man and a woman and they are probably holding hands because they are in love."

"And in Britain, women cannot hold hands?"

"It is . . . people would . . . “Serena struggles for words. "We are friends, but people might get the wrong idea."

"Wrong? Women cannot love each other?"

"Not in the same way as a man and woman."

"So, one love is good and another bad? Why would love be wrong?"

Serena doesn't know what to say to that. The woman's questions are naive, but that is because they are an outsider's. And they have the logic of an outsider, looking at society from a vantage point it. A logic Serena can't deny. How can you divide love into good and bad? 

Serena wants to tell Bernie that there are different kinds of love, but catches herself before she can, thinking it a very poor choice of phrases. Her skin is already flushed from the unusual heat of the early November sun. She is not quite ready to explain the concept of sex to the woman opposite her. She could describe it clinically of course, she is a doctor after all, but how could one ever explain sex properly, in all it's marvellous, with just the human tongue?

"Oh look," Serena points Bernie's attention to the stall in front of them. "Ice-cream. Would you like one?"

-

Bernie has never tasted ice-cream before, licks at it. Grins.

Serena smiles, wonders what other joys the woman has missed out on.

Bernie, however, when they pass a church on the way back to Serena’s home, with a newly-wed couple in its archway, wonders the same of Serena.

“I suppose,” Bernie says, as the bride clutches the groom’s hand, “that they are in love to.”

“You would think.”

“They are not in love, then. How can you tell?”

“You can’t. They are married. Have promised to love each other despite illness, poverty, war, but people do not always keep their vows.”

“Then why do they make them? Why do they marry?”

Serena shrugs her shoulders. “Because they think it is what they should do. What everyone does.”

“The ceremony. Is it only two people?” Bernie’s quickly guessed this is another thing that applies to man and woman only, but she wonders just how primitive the human race is.

“Of course,” Serena laughs. “I think two people are enough. Too much damage otherwise.”

Bernie wants to tell her how the Amazons too have a ceremony where they pledge their heart to another, but it is not always just to another. The pledge can bond two, three, four women. She wants to tell Serena how it is not something a woman does lightly, just because she thinks she should. It is not a bond, either that a woman breaks even in death. She is buried with her partners.

Bernie wants to tell that there are different kinds of love. Love between women. But she fears that if the woman was concerned earlier over women holding hands, she would become terribly uncomfortable if Bernie told her that women do a lot more. Besides, how could she capture, in words, silly, slight things like words, how could she capture the love between women, it’s magnificence, in just words?

-

The war is over. People are dancing in the streets. There is clamour and cheer and crying. Serena has opened a bottle of wine, dusted it off from her basement. She sits on her doorstep and watches the revelries in the street. Swigs from the bottle, passes it to Bernie who sits next to her.

“Don’t let me drink too much.” Serena wipes back a tear. “I’m going back to the hospital in a bit. Still work to do.” For some men, this war isn’t over. Not by a long stretch. For some of them it will, in their minds, never be over.

But she knows, deep down, that’s not why she’s crying. The reason is ridiculous and pathetic and simple. It embrasses her.

“And I suppose,” Serena turns to Bernie, “your niece, you will want to find her and return with her now. Back to Themyscira?”

Bernie shakes her head, eyes drifting down to Serena’s lips. The wine was good, rich and sweet, but she reckons there’s a better taste.

“Not if you give me a reason to stay a little longer.”

Serena stands up and pulls Bernie up, drags her inside the house. The second the door is shut, she pushes Bernie back against it. She stops though, her lips millimetres from Bernie’s.

Her voice quivers, ever so slightly.

“Will this do?”

Bernie threads her hands through Serena’s hair, brings their lips together and assures her that it very much will.

Outside, the bottle of wine Bernie left by the doorstep, is kicked over.

Smashes, spills out red.

-

To be continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk. Does anyone want more? I'm not super sure with AU.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are the best.


End file.
